UN General Assembly Votes to Redefine Global Map Projections

New york: The UN General Assembly has voted overwhelmingly to encourage governments, schools, and tech companies worldwide to stop using maps that make Africa appear far smaller than it really is. By a vote of 164 to one, Member States endorsed a resolution promoting map projections that more accurately reflect the true size of continents. This move is the culmination of an African-led campaign against the 16th-century Mercator projection, which remains the most widely used map in the world. According to United Nations, the United States cast the sole vote against the resolution, dismissing the initiative as part of a radical ideological project. Six countries-Estonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Moldova, Serbia, and Ukraine-abstained from voting. The resolution does not ban the Mercator projection or impose a replacement. Instead, it encourages the use of the Equal Earth projection and other equal-area maps when relative size matters and emphasizes teaching the limitations of any flat map in representing a spherica l planet. Behind the technical debate is a larger argument about history and power: whether a map designed for European sailors in the 16th century has distorted not only geography but perceptions of a whole, vast, and complex continent over generations. Togo led the negotiations on behalf of the African group, building on a campaign backed by the African Union. The resolution describes correcting such distortions as an act of cognitive justice and memorial reparation. The United States expressed significant political concerns regarding the resolution. The American representative argued that the initiative was part of a larger ideological project and criticized references to reparations and cognitive justice in the resolution. In contrast, France announced plans to abandon Mercator for its world maps, aligning with the broader effort championed by the African Union, illustrating the unusual dynamics of this decades-long debate. Ukraine supported the idea of correcting historical distortions affecting Afric a and other parts of the Global South but expressed concerns about how some maps using Equal Earth depict Ukrainian territory occupied by Russia. The European Union supported the resolution while emphasizing that it applied only to the relative size of landmasses and had no bearing on sovereignty, territorial status, or internationally recognized borders. The vote underscores a fundamental issue: no projection can perfectly reproduce the Earth's curved surface on a plane. Each projection sacrifices something-area, shape, distance, or direction-and each serves different purposes. Despite these limitations, the resolution garnered near-unanimous international backing for the argument that map choices can shape how generations understand the world.