Kathmandu— The United Nations General Assembly has voted to back a resolution spearheaded by several African countries to adopt a map that shows Africa, Latin America, South Asia and Oceania larger than on conventional world maps. On Friday, the non-binding resolution aimed at a more accurate representation of continental landmasses was supported by 164 countries, while the United States voted against it and six other states abstained. The resolution urges member states to use the Equal Earth cartographic projection as a relevant option for improving accuracy, and Togo’s Foreign Minister Robert Dussey said the decision reaffirms African reality.

Resolution And Vote

The resolution, driven by Togo, calls for a more accurate representation of continental landmasses on the globe. It was supported by 164 countries, with the United States voting against and Serbia, Estonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Moldova and Ukraine abstaining. Foreign Minister Robert Dussey of Togo, which drove the resolution, said maps “guide education, nourish the imagination, and influence collective perceptions”. “The resolution adopted today reaffirms African reality,” he added.

US representative Yaryna Ferencevych said before the vote that the resolution is “the reason this institution is losing its credibility”. “Instead of focusing on genuine problems … this body is debating map projects from the 16th century,” she said.

Mercator Distortion And Equal Earth Alternative

The UN has urged member states to adopt a new map in place of the centuries-old Mercator projection, designed for maritime navigation by Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator in 1569. That projection focused on accurate depictions of shapes and angles of land masses, but relative sizes were often inaccurate. It inflated northern regions and compressed equatorial ones, making Europe and North America appear much larger while shrinking Africa and South America.

The new map known as the Equal Earth cartographic projection “is a relevant option for improving the accuracy of the cartographic representation of the world”, the resolution stated. Equal Earth was launched in 2018 by three cartographers — Bojan Savric of the Environmental Systems Research Institute, Tom Patterson of the US National Park Service, and Bernhard Jenny of Monash University. “Equal Earth preserves the relative surface areas of continents and, as much as possible, shows their shapes as they appear on a globe,” Savric told the AFP news agency in 2025.

Continental Sizes Under New Representation

Africa is about 30.3 million square kilometres, large enough to contain the US, China, India and most of Europe, yet on a Mercator map it looks roughly the same size as Greenland, which is actually about 14 times smaller than the continent. Latin America covers roughly 20 million sq km, of which South America accounts for 17.8 million sq km. Oceania spans about 8.5 million sq km, almost all of it Australia. South Asia is the smallest of the four at about 5.1 million sq km, though it is home to about a quarter of the world’s population. Combined, the four cover about 64 million sq km, more than 40 percent of the world’s land surface. Europe, by comparison, is 10.2 million sq km.

Reactions And Implementation

Largely positive. France, which co-sponsored the resolution in support of the new map, announced on Friday that it would abandon the Mercator projection. In that map, “the United States, Russia and China take on a disproportionate visual prominence compared to Africa, Latin America or Southeast Asia”, while “Greenland appears almost as big as Africa,” Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said. “Changing maps obviously doesn’t change the world,” he added. “But correcting a distorted representation is already an act of truth.”

Friday’s resolution is not binding, but is intended to encourage changes to maps used by default around the world. The UN said in its report that it is not banning the Mercator projection or imposing a replacement, but is merely encouraging the use of the Equal Earth projection.

The UN resolution encourages governments and institutions worldwide to adopt the Equal Earth projection, though it does not require a change and leaves the Mercator projection in use where preferred.

(With inputs from Al Jazeera)

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Originally published on abcnews.com.np.