The United Nations General Assembly voted Friday for a resolution spearheaded by several African countries to adopt a map that makes their continent bigger while shrinking North America and Europe – aiming at "a more accurate representation" of world geography. The resolution was backed by 164 countries while the United States voted against it and six other states abstained.
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The new map – known as the Equal Earth cartographic projection – "offers a more accurate representation of the sizes of continental landmasses and to this end is a relevant option for improving the accuracy of the cartographic representation of the world," the resolution says. It urges member states to adopt the new map in place of the traditional Mercator projection, which was designed for maritime navigation by Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator in 1569. The foreign minister of Togo, which drove the resolution, said maps "shape our understanding of the world." "They guide education, nourish the imagination, and influence collective perceptions. They are therefore never neutral, when they present a distorted image of our planet, they risk perpetuating inaccurate representation that are passed down through generation," Robert Dussey said at the UN.
