UN map vote sparks debate over Africa's global representation

The United Nations General Assembly's decision to promote world maps that more accurately represent the relative size of continents has opened a new chapter in a decades‑old debate over cartography, representation and the way people perceive the world.

The resolution, spearheaded by Togo on behalf of the African Group and backed by the African Union, was adopted on September 4 by 164 votes in favour, with the United States voting against and six countries abstaining — Estonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Moldova, Serbia and Ukraine.

It promotes the use of the Equal Earth projection, developed in 2018, as a more accurate way of representing the relative area of the world's continents. The resolution is non-binding and does not prohibit the use of the Mercator projection, which remains particularly useful for navigation. Instead, it encourages governments and institutions to use projections that more accurately represent the relative size of the world's regions in contexts such as education, public information and geographical literacy.

For African affairs commentator Joseph Ochieno, the significance of the vote lies not in immediately replacing every map in classrooms, offices or digital applications, but in challenging a visual representation of the world that has shaped geographical perceptions for generations. Speaking to CGTN from London, Ochieno described the vote as "extremely significant," arguing that maps do more than locate countries.

"They influence how generations perceive geography, power and the place of Africa in the world," he said.

From Mercator to Equal Earth: the evolution of the map debate

The controversy surrounding world maps is much older than the current UN initiative.

Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator published his famous projection in 1569. It was designed primarily for maritime navigation, allowing lines of constant compass bearing to be represented as straight lines. That property made Mercator exceptionally useful for sailors. But it came with a major trade‑off: areas become increasingly exaggerated as they move away from the Equator toward the poles.

The effect is particularly striking when comparing Africa and Greenland. Africa covers about 30.4 million square kilometers, while Greenland is about 2.2 million square kilometers. Africa is therefore roughly 14 times larger. Yet on a standard Mercator world map, Greenland can appear comparable in size to Africa.

This does not mean Mercator was designed to deliberately make Africa smaller. The distortion is a mathematical consequence of the projection's design and its purpose as a navigation tool.

The political debate came much later. In the 1970s, German historian Arno Peters popularised an equal‑area projection that had originally been described by Scottish cartographer James Gall in 1855. Peters presented it as an alternative to Mercator and argued that maps should give greater attention to the relative area of regions around the world. The Gall‑Peters projection preserves the relative area of land masses, but it also introduces significant distortion in the shapes of countries and continents. Peters' claims triggered what became known as the "map wars" of the 1970s and 1980s.

Cartographers challenged the suggestion that the Peters projection was uniquely or objectively "correct." The broader cartographic principle is that no flat map can simultaneously preserve area, shape, distance and direction everywhere.

That distinction is important in understanding the recent UN resolution. The argument is not that Mercator is inaccurate in every respect. Rather, Mercator is poorly suited to comparing the relative areas of continents, while an equal‑area projection such as Equal Earth is better suited to that particular purpose.

The Equal Earth projection was developed in 2018 by Bojan Šavrič, Tom Patterson and Bernhard Jenny. It is an equal‑area projection designed to preserve the relative size of land masses while presenting continental shapes in a visually balanced way. That makes it particularly relevant to the current campaign to change how Africa is represented in educational and public maps.

An African-led campaign

The initiative has been framed as both a scientific and representational issue. Togo has argued that maps used in schools, public institutions and digital platforms should better reflect the actual relative size of the world's regions.

The campaign gained momentum under the banner #CorrectTheMap, with Togo taking the issue to the UN on behalf of the African Group. The African Union had previously endorsed the initiative and promoted the use of equal-area projections such as Equal Earth.

The General Assembly's resolution does not compel governments, schools, publishers or technology companies to immediately replace their existing maps. Instead, it gives international political backing to the wider use of projections that more accurately represent continental areas. Togo has said it plans to update its own school geography materials and encourage wider adoption.

The distinction matters because Mercator remains useful for particular applications. Its preservation of angles makes it valuable for navigation, and the UN-backed initiative does not seek to eliminate that use.

Why the vote matters

For Ochieno, however, the significance of the vote extends beyond mathematics and geography. He argues that the visual prominence given to countries and continents can influence how people understand global power and relative importance.

"For generations, Africa has been presented as the minor partner," he said, arguing that more geographically proportional maps could contribute to challenging perceptions shaped by colonial and post-colonial history.

There is an important caveat: there is no simple scientific evidence that using Mercator maps directly causes people to regard Africa as politically or economically less important. Scholars have debated the cultural and psychological effects of maps, but the stronger claim that Mercator itself created a hierarchy of global power would be difficult to establish.

What can be established is that Mercator significantly exaggerates the apparent area of high-latitude regions when used as a general-purpose world map. Equal Earth addresses that particular problem by preserving relative area.

The UN itself framed the resolution as more than a technical cartographic exercise, saying its sponsors linked accurate mapping to education, public understanding, culture, geopolitics and perceptions of Africa's scale and potential.

The United States was the only country to vote against the resolution. Its representative argued that the measure formed part of a broader ideological project involving issues such as reparations and "cognitive justice."

The European Union, while supporting the resolution's objective, stressed that its scope was limited to education, awareness and geographical literacy, and did not affect sovereignty, territorial status, delimitation or internationally recognised borders.

More than a map

Africa is the world's second-largest continent by land area, covering roughly 30 million square kilometres, and is home to more than 1.5 billion people. The Mercator projection can make Africa and other equatorial regions appear substantially smaller relative to high-latitude land masses.

The new UN resolution does not redraw Africa's borders, change its political status or redistribute global power. Nor will it make Mercator disappear overnight.

What it does is give an African-led campaign an international platform and encourage a different way of representing geographical scale.

For Ochieno, that could be the beginning of a wider conversation about how Africa is represented geographically, historically and politically in the global system.

The map may not change the world. But the UN vote reflects a growing argument that how the world is drawn can influence how the world is understood.