On 4th September 2026, at its 80th session, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a draft resolution entitled “Correct the Map: Rebalancing global cartographic representation and promoting equitable representation of the world’s regions, particularly Africa.” The measure passed by 164 votes. The United States voted against, calling it an ideological agenda. Six countries – Estonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Moldova, Serbia and Ukraine – abstained. Togo introduced the initiative on behalf of the 54-member African Union, giving the campaign a clear institutional link to African concerns about the visual representation of the continent.
The resolution called on the world to phase out the 1569 Mercator projection in favour of the Equal Earth projection, developed in 2018, when relative size matters. The resolution is non-binding and does not ban Mercator — it remains valid for navigation — but it encourages governments, schools, media and tech companies to use equal-area maps.
On the Mercator map, Greenland looks roughly the same size as Africa. In reality, Africa is about 14 times larger than Greenland. Mercator was designed for 16th-century sailors to plot straight-line courses, not to compare landmasses. But because Europe and North America sit further north, they are visually inflated. Equatorial regions are shrunk.
The UN text says this distortion “contributes to minimising the perceived sizes of Africa, Latin America and South Asia, and perpetuating an unbalanced view of the world” and minimising “socioeconomic realities, infrastructure needs, development potential and prosperity in the Southern regions”. Togo’s Foreign Minister Robert Dussey, who led the campaign, said it simply: “A fair world begins with a fair map” and “Maps shape our understanding of the world”.
The campaign group Africa No Filter said: “We want to see accurate maps in schools, textbooks, newsrooms, businesses and on the digital platforms billions of people use every day”. When investors see a small Africa on a slide, they subconsciously see a small market. When news editors show a climate crisis with a Mercator map, Africa’s vulnerability looks geographically marginal.
Equal Earth changes the visual calculus. In it, Africa and Latin America look larger and more proportionate, while the US, Russia and Europe look smaller, closer to their true share. As the AU Commission put it in March: “Africa, once diminished on maps, now insists on being seen at its true scale – geographically, historically, morally, culturally, economically, diplomatically and globally”.
France has already announced it will abandon Mercator for representations that more accurately depict surface areas. The resolution does not force Google, schools or publishers to change. But the expectation is that curricula and tech will follow, as Boston Public Schools already did to “decolonise the curriculum”.
Our Ministry of Basic Education should follow Togo’s lead — Togo says it will be the first to change its own geography books this year. Second, our media houses should adopt Equal Earth for development and economic reporting. Third, we should teach children that no flat map is perfect — Equal Earth preserves area but distorts shape near the poles. The goal is not a perfect map, but an honest one.
The resolution does not affect sovereignty, territorial status, delimitation, or internationally recognised borders. Its central objective is to encourage greater use of projections that represent the relative area of the world’s regions more faithfully, particularly where maps are used for education, public communication, and geographic literacy. The decision is more accurately understood as a strong international endorsement of equal-area cartographic representation where relative geographic size is relevant.
At its 39th Ordinary Session in February 2026, the Assembly of the African Union adopted the Equal Earth projection and encouraged member states to revise national curricula accordingly. The decision framed the initiative through concepts including equitable representation, cognitive justice, reparations, and the legacy of colonial cartography. The union has already pursued engagement with technology companies, mapping providers, publishers, educational institutions, and international organisations to encourage broader adoption of equal-area cartography.
Mercator helped us navigate the seas. Equal Earth may help us navigate our place in the world with dignity.