The United Nations General Assembly has endorsed a new world map that shows Africa in a more accurate proportion, following a campaign by African governments and advocacy groups against what campaigners have called “cartographic colonialism”.
The resolution, sponsored by Togo and backed by members of the African Union, was approved on Friday by 164 countries. The United States voted against it, while Serbia, Estonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Moldova and Ukraine abstained.
It urges governments, schools, businesses and technology companies to consider replacing the traditional Mercator projection with the Equal Earth map, a design introduced in 2018 to represent continents closer to their true relative sizes.
The Mercator projection, created by Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator in the 16th century, was designed primarily to help sailors navigate. Its use of a projection that enlarges areas near the poles makes Greenland appear roughly comparable in size to Africa, although Africa is about 14 times larger.
The new resolution does not ban the Mercator projection or compel countries to adopt an alternative. Instead, it encourages the use of maps that present land areas more accurately in education, public information and digital services.
Supporters of the change argue that the familiar map has helped entrench a distorted view of the world by visually enlarging Europe, North America and Greenland while reducing the apparent size of Africa and other equatorial regions.
Robert Dussey, Togo’s foreign affairs minister, said the issue was a scientific one, arguing that the world should accept the evidence showing the distortion created by the traditional projection.
Africa No Filter, one of the organisations involved in the campaign, said it wanted accurate maps to be used in schools, textbooks, newsrooms, businesses and digital platforms.
The vote marks the culmination of a recent push led by African countries and advocacy groups to challenge inherited cartographic conventions and change how the continent is represented around the world.
