U.N. General Assembly Votes 164-1 to Encourage Equal-Area Maps, Addressing Africa Size Distortion

The United Nations General Assembly voted 164 to 1 on Friday September 6 to adopt a resolution encouraging governments, schools, international organizations, and technology companies to use equal-area map projections that more accurately reflect the relative size of continents, particularly Africa. The resolution, introduced by Togo on behalf of the African Group's 54 member states and supported by the African Union, addresses distortions created by the widely used Mercator projection, which was developed in the 16th century for maritime navigation and enlarges land masses near the poles while shrinking those near the equator. Africa spans approximately 30.4 million square kilometers, larger than the United States, China, India, Japan, and most of Europe combined and about 14 times larger than Greenland, yet conventional Mercator maps typically show it as comparable in size to Greenland. The United States cast the sole vote against, with six countries abstaining including Estonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Moldova, Serbia and Ukraine. Togo's Foreign Minister Robert Dussey said maps shape perceptions and influence how the place of peoples and continents in the world is understood, calling the resolution a step toward correcting colonial-era biases. The U.S. deputy representative to the U.N. Economic and Social Council, Yaryna Ferencevych, called the resolution part of a radical ideological project and criticized the body for debating map projects from the 16th century instead of focusing on genuine problems of international peace and prosperity. The resolution is non-binding and does not mandate specific use, but signals near-unanimous international support for promoting equal-area projections such as Equal Earth and Gall-Peters over the traditional Mercator map in educational and policy materials.