UN backs effort to drop Mercator map and show size of Africa more accurately

The resolution was sponsored by African states to counter perceptions that the continent is peripheral.

It passed with the support of 164 nations, including France. The United States was the only vote against the move. Estonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Moldova, Serbia and Ukraine abstained.

Togo led the initiative to further the African Union campaign to limit use of the Mercator projection, named after a 16th-century Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator.

Designed for maritime navigation, it increases distortion the further a region lies from the equator.

Since Africa and South America both straddle the equator, they seem smaller than their actual size, while Russia, North America and Greenland appear much larger.

"The United States, Russia and China take on a disproportionate visual importance compared with Africa, Latin America or South-East Asia," said France's Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot when he announced on Friday that France will stop using maps based on the Mercator projection.

"Greenland appears almost as large as Africa, whereas Africa is actually about 14 times larger."

Equal Earth projection

The resolution promotes the Equal Earth projection, which more accurately portrays the size of the continents. It is not legally binding.

"It in no way challenges the use of the Mercator projection for maritime and aerial navigation, for which it remains fully suited," the Togolese ministry said in a statement.

“This decision is about much more than cartography," said Togo's Foreign Minister Robert Dussey on social media after the resolution was adopted.

"It is about justice, dignity, equality and the way we represent our world.” 

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The US delegation said it objected to the resolution because it promoted an ideological agenda. "It is a distraction from the genuine problems of international peace, prosperity or good relations," it added.

'Togo to change maps in schools'

"Togo will be the first country to change our own geography books," Dussey said.

"In the classroom, we need to change it to give an example to all the countries in the world."

Dussey said Togo will press other governments, schools, international organisations and technology companies to move away from the Mercator projection.

He added that Togo plans to meet African Union member states and supporters from other regions within the next six months to agree on how to promote wider adoption.

Dussey said the discussion about next steps would need to include companies operating mapping, GPS and other location-based technologies.

The text of the resolution did noto ban the Mercator projection outright. It asks governments, schools, international organisations and technology companies to adopt the Equal Earth projection and other equal-area maps where the true scale of continents matters.

Changing perceptions

Barrot said in his speech at the Sorbonne University in Paris that France's decision was part of a wider debate about how maps shape perceptions of international power.

Such representations can have a lasting effect on how people perceive the world, he argued.

"Distortions eventually take root in perceptions. The time has come to correct them," Barrot said. "Changing the map obviously does not change the world. But correcting a distorting representation is already an act of truth."

Barrot said the move was in line with France's push against over-simplified views of the world that pit a so-called "global south" against "the West" and portray Europe as being in decline.

African campaign

In a briefing to the African Group at the UN about changing the map, Dussey said: "A map is never neutral ... It shapes perceptions, influences how the place of peoples and continents in the world is understood, and may, sometimes from the earliest years of schooling, perpetuate representations that do not correspond to geographic reality."

"Africa is not asking for preferential treatment," he added. "Africa is asking that its reality, aspirations and contribution to the international system be duly taken into account."

(with newswires)