The United Nations General Assembly voted Friday to back a resolution spearheaded by several African countries to adopt a map that makes their continent bigger while shrinking North America and Europe.
France which co-sponsored the resolution in support of the new map announced Friday that it would abandon the Mercator projection.
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 said. Foreign Minister Robert Dussey of Togo, which drove the resolution, said maps “guide education, nourish the imagination, and influence collective perceptions. “Instead of focusing on genuine problems… this body is debating map projects from the 16th century and their role in promoting reparations and cognitive justice,” US representative Yaryna Ferencevych said ahead of the vote. 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 said. “But correcting a distorted representation is already an act of truth.”
