U.N. backs new world map showing Africa in true relative size : NPR

Key Points:

• The United Nations General Assembly adopted the "Correct the Map" resolution with 164 votes in favor, aiming to promote equal-area map projections that more accurately represent Africa and other regions, while only the United States voted against it.
• Introduced by Togo on behalf of the African Group and supported by the African Union, the resolution encourages the use of the Equal Earth projection, which corrects size distortions seen in the traditional Mercator projection, particularly underrepresenting Africa's size.
• The Mercator projection, created in 1569 for navigation purposes, distorts landmass sizes by enlarging regions near the poles and shrinking equatorial areas, leading to misconceptions about the relative size and importance of continents like Africa.
• The United States opposed the resolution, criticizing it as an ideological distraction from more pressing global issues, while the African Union praised the resolution for promoting a fairer visual representation of Africa's true scale.
• The Equal Earth projection, developed in 2018 by cartographers including Tom Patterson, was designed to provide a more proportionally accurate world map, and its adoption is seen as a step toward challenging longstanding geographic misconceptions.