UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY ADOPTS EQUAL EARTH MAP, PHASING OUT MERCATOR PROJECTION

September 5, 2026

NEW YORK: In a landmark geopolitical and cartographic shift, the United Nations General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to adopt a resolution officially phasing out the traditional 16th-century Mercator map in favor of the Equal Earth projection, drastically altering the visual scale of continents.

Key Aspects of the UN Vote and Cartographic Shift

·         The Vote Breakdown: Spearheaded by Togo on behalf of the African Union, the resolution passed with 164 countries voting in favour, six abstentions, and the United States casting the sole opposing vote.

·         Correcting Historical Distortion: The widely used Mercator projection—invented by Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator in 1569 primarily for maritime navigation—inherently distorts surface areas as latitude increases. This design severely inflated high-latitude regions like North America, Europe, and Russia while shrinking equatorial landmasses. Under the new Equal Earth projection (introduced in 2018), Africa appears roughly 14 times larger than Greenland (rather than appearing comparable in size), and regions like Latin America, South Asia, and Oceania reflect their true relative proportions.

·         Global and Diplomatic Repercussions: Proponents of the change, including France (which co-sponsored the text), argued that correcting visual representation is an essential act of truth that dismantles legacy biases in global education and institutional mapping. Conversely, the United States slammed the resolution as "superfluous" and an ideological distraction, arguing that the UN should focus on pressing international crises rather than centuries-old map projections.