'Africa is this big?' — The 500-year-old world map may be on its way out of the UN

Africa's actual area is 14 times that of Greenland

The Mercator projection was designed for navigation in 1569

Distortion debate: polar regions inflated, equatorial zones shrunk

African Union-backed resolution put to a UN vote

At left, Africa as depicted on a traditional world map using the Mercator projection. At right, Africa as shown on the Equal Earth map, developed in 2018 to more accurately reflect the true size of the continents. [equal-earth.com/Getty Images]

The world map that generations of schoolchildren have grown up with may be headed for retirement after 500 years. On that familiar map, Africa and Greenland appear to be roughly the same size — yet Africa's actual area is about 14 times larger. The discrepancy is a product of the distortion that occurs when a spherical Earth is flattened onto a two-dimensional surface.

African nations argue that this distortion goes beyond a simple geographic error, shaping a global perception of Africa as a smaller and more marginal continent than it really is. That concern has now reached the UN, where a push is underway to replace the world's most widely used map projection with one that more accurately represents the true size of the continents.

The UN General Assembly was set to vote Friday on a resolution calling for greater use of world maps that more accurately depict the true size of the African continent, according to The Guardian and other outlets.

Led by Togo and backed by the African Union, the resolution urges governments, international organizations, schools and technology companies to adopt area-preserving map projections — including the Equal Earth projection — in place of the Mercator projection.

The resolution, if passed, would carry no binding force. Even so, it has drawn attention for its potential to prompt changes in school curricula, international organization materials and the digital platforms used worldwide.

Togolese Foreign Minister Robert Dussey said the debate was not a political one but a scientific one, and that the world should accept a reality that science has already established.

The world's most familiar map is based on the Mercator projection, devised in 1569 by Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator. Its original purpose was not to accurately represent the world's true landmasses but to help sailors navigate during the Age of Exploration.

Designed to preserve the directional relationship between lines of latitude and longitude when projecting a spherical surface onto a flat plane, the projection proved invaluable for navigation — but it came with a critical flaw. The farther a region lies from the equator, the more its area is exaggerated.

As a result, Greenland, North America, Europe and Russia — all closer to the poles — appear far larger than they actually are, while Africa and South America, which straddle the equator, look comparatively small.

The Africa-Greenland comparison is the most striking example. On a Mercator map, the two appear to be roughly the same size, yet Africa covers about 30.3 million square kilometers — approximately 14 times the area of Greenland.

India offers another illustration: on the Mercator map it looks not much bigger than France, yet India's actual area is far greater. The world map that has been in use for centuries has, in effect, obscured much of the true size difference between the continents.

A map of Africa from the Mercator atlas produced between 1595 and 1602. [Royal Geographical Society/Getty Images]

That is what has prompted African nations to take an active stand on the map question. This year, the African Union adopted a decision stating that the Mercator projection distorts the true size of the African continent in ways that affect global perceptions and may hinder objective assessments of Africa's economic potential.

The AU then tasked Togo with leading the "Correct The Map" campaign on the international stage.

The proposed alternative is the Equal Earth projection, developed in 2018. It is designed to preserve the relative areas of continents and countries more faithfully while retaining a shape closer to the familiar world map than older area-preserving projections.

The debate, however, is not simply a matter of which image is more accurate. Perfectly transferring a spherical Earth onto a flat surface is inherently impossible. Any projection will inevitably distort some combination of area, angles, distances and directions.

The Mercator projection is less a "wrong map" than a map built for a specific purpose — one that prioritizes direction and angles for navigation. Equal Earth, by contrast, focuses on accurately comparing the areas of continents, which means it introduces its own distortions in shape and direction.

Ultimately, the question is not which map is superior but what purpose a given map is meant to serve.

African nations nonetheless argue that textbooks and international organization materials — resources that shape how people around the world understand the planet — should more faithfully reflect actual landmass sizes. The Mercator projection remains in widespread use in education and technology more than 450 years after it was created, and they say it is time to adopt a new standard.

The World Bank has already shifted to Equal Earth and other alternative projections for static maps and has been phasing out the Mercator approach for its web maps as well. Google Maps introduced a three-dimensional globe view on desktop in 2018.

African nations hope the UN vote will mark the starting point for changing a centuries-old assumption about what the world looks like. Dussey said Africa was not asking for special treatment. "We are asking to be shown the geographic size we actually occupy in the world," he said.

sjy@heraldcorp.com