UN to Vote on Replacing Map That Makes Africa Look Smaller Than It Is
- The UN General Assembly is set to vote on August 4, 2026 on a resolution to phase out the Mercator map globally
- Togo's foreign minister said the resolution is backed by all 54 African Union member states and has the support of France
- Supporters argue the Mercator projection has distorted Africa's true size for centuries, fuelling what some call cartographic colonialism
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The United Nations General Assembly is scheduled to vote on August 4, 2026 on a resolution that would formally phase out the Mercator world map in favour of a projection that more accurately represents the true size of Africa and other equatorial regions.
The resolution was sponsored by Togo and is backed by all 54 other African Union member states, according to Robert Dussey, Togo's foreign affairs minister. He said the push is rooted in science rather than politics.
Source: Getty Images
"This discussion is not a political discussion [but] a scientific discussion, because there is scientific proof so we all have to accept the reality," Dussey said.
Why the Mercator map is disputed
According to The Guardian UK, the Mercator projection was created by Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator in 1569 to help sailors navigate the seas. Although nearly five centuries have passed, it remains the global standard in education, technology, and governance.
The map's projection style causes regions near the equator to appear far smaller than they are in reality, while high-latitude areas appear much larger. Africa, for instance, looks roughly the same size as Greenland on the map, yet the continent is 14 times larger.
A petition on Change.org for the #CorrectTheMap campaign, which has gathered more than 11,000 signatures, notes that the United States, China, India, Japan, Mexico, and much of Europe could all fit inside Africa with land to spare.
Historians and geographers have long argued that the map reinforces western-centric biases, with some activists going further by using the term "cartographic colonialism" to describe its effects on how the global south is perceived in trade, development, and education.
The African Union endorsed the #CorrectTheMap campaign in August 2025 and asked Togo to lead its adoption at the UN. The resolution promotes the Equal Earth projection, a design developed in 2018 by an international team of cartographers.
France backs the change
On the eve of the vote, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot publicly supported the resolution during a speech at the Sorbonne University in Paris. He said France would "abandon the Mercator projection in favour of map representations tailored to specific uses, more faithful to actual surface areas and in line with the recommendations of cartographers and scientists." France has since said it will adopt the Eckert IV projection, which is closely aligned with the Equal Earth design recommended in the resolution.
JJ Enoch, a London-based senior associate at geopolitical risk advisory firm JS Held, said adopting an equal-area map "would provide a more accurate basis for education and public understanding, while signalling that Africa's demographic, economic and geopolitical importance should no longer be viewed through inherited and distorted conventions."
UN resolutions are non-binding, but a favourable vote could prompt updates to school curricula and widely used digital tools. Togolese authorities are planning an event in Lomé in the first quarter of 2027, with Unesco, the African Union, and technology companies including Google Maps, to begin mapping out implementation.
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