UN General Assembly Endorses Equal Earth Map Projection in Landmark Cartographic Shift
The United Nations General Assembly has endorsed a resolution encouraging the wider use of equal-area world map projections, in a major challenge to the dominance of the centuries-old Mercator projection. The resolution, led by Togo and supported by African countries, passed on September 4 with 164 votes in favour, one against and six abstentions. The United States was the only country to vote against it.
The initiative promotes the Equal Earth projection, developed in 2018 by cartographers Bojan Šavrič, Tom Patterson and Bernhard Jenny. Unlike Mercator, Equal Earth preserves the relative area of continents and countries, allowing viewers to better understand their actual geographic proportions.
The most striking difference is Africa. On the familiar Mercator world map, Africa can appear comparable in size to Greenland, even though Africa is roughly 14 times larger. Mercator dramatically enlarges territories closer to the North and South Poles while reducing the apparent scale of regions around the Equator.
The UN resolution does not legally abolish or ban the Mercator projection. Instead, it encourages governments, educational institutions, international organisations, media outlets and technology companies to consider equal-area projections for representing the world, particularly in contexts where relative landmass size matters.
The distinction is important because Mercator was originally designed primarily for navigation. Its ability to preserve angles and directions makes it useful for maritime navigation and certain mapping applications. The UN-backed initiative therefore does not mean that navigation systems will suddenly abandon Mercator-based technology.
The campaign has been strongly associated with Africa’s effort to correct what supporters describe as longstanding distortions in the way the continent is visually represented. Togo has taken a leading role and has indicated that it intends to change geography materials in its schools, while encouraging other countries and technology companies to follow.
The debate is also connected to broader discussions about the historical legacy of colonialism. Supporters argue that maps are not merely technical tools: they influence how students and the public perceive the relative importance, scale and position of different regions of the world. African campaigners have therefore described the change as an effort to provide a more geographically accurate and balanced global perspective.
India voted in favour of the resolution but made an important clarification. Its UN mission said India understands the measure as supporting the broader use and consideration of equal-area projections, rather than endorsing Equal Earth or any other single projection. India also reiterated that representations of its territory must reflect its official position and territorial boundaries.
The United States, meanwhile, opposed the resolution, arguing that it advanced what Washington viewed as an ideological agenda and diverted attention from more substantive international issues. The overwhelming vote in favour nevertheless gives the initiative considerable political momentum.
The Equal Earth projection itself does not claim to eliminate every distortion. No flat map can perfectly reproduce a three-dimensional globe because transforming a spherical Earth onto a flat surface inevitably requires compromises involving shape, distance, direction or area. Equal Earth’s principal advantage is that it prioritises accurate relative area while maintaining a visually familiar world-map appearance.
The practical impact of the UN resolution will therefore depend on what happens next. The most significant changes could emerge in school textbooks, educational maps, institutional publications, news graphics and digital mapping platforms if governments and companies voluntarily adopt equal-area representations more widely.
The decision is ultimately less about banning one map than about changing which visual representation becomes the default when people look at the world. For supporters, the message is straightforward: if a map is intended to show the relative size of continents, Africa and other equatorial regions should not appear smaller simply because of the projection used.
