Key Findings
| 1 | Africa covers 30.37 million square kilometres. On the Mercator map used in classrooms, boardrooms and newsrooms for 450 years, it appears roughly the same size as Greenland, which is 2.166 million square kilometres. Africa is nearly 14 times larger. The entire United States, China, India and most of Europe fit inside Africa, with land to spare. |
| 2 | On September 4, 2026, the United Nations General Assembly voted 164 to 1 to adopt resolution A/80/L.104, known as Correct the Map, endorsing the Equal Earth projection as an alternative to the Mercator map. Togo led the campaign on behalf of the African Union. The United States cast the only vote against, calling it a radical ideological project. |
| 3 | The resolution is non-binding. It does not ban the Mercator projection, which remains the correct tool for maritime and aerial navigation. It encourages governments, schools, media organizations and technology companies to use equal-area maps where the relative size of continents and countries matters. |
| 4 | The case for correcting the map goes beyond pride. Research consistently links visual underrepresentation of the Global South to lower investment attention, smaller media coverage and weaker policy engagement. When a continent of 1.5 billion people looks the size of an Arctic island, perception follows the picture. |
| 5 | Cartographers Bojan Savric, Tom Patterson, and Bernhard Jenny designed the Equal Earth projection in 2018. It preserves the true proportional area of all landmasses while keeping continent shapes familiar enough for everyday use. It is freely available and already used widely in scientific and educational settings. |
Why This Matters
Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator designed the Mercator projection in 1569 to help sailors navigate the oceans. For that purpose, it remains unmatched. For understanding the world, it has done enormous damage. Because it stretches landmasses as they approach the poles, Europe and North America look far bigger than they are, while Africa, sitting astride the equator, is displayed almost at its true size. The result is a visual hierarchy that has nothing to do with accuracy and everything to do with geography: the colonising world looks large and powerful; the colonised world looks small and peripheral.
This week’s UN vote is not about cartography. It is about the downstream effects of 450 years of a shrunken Africa in the world’s mental model. Investment decisions, media coverage, development aid allocations and political attention all follow perception. If the picture of the world that policymakers, investors and students carry in their heads is one where Africa is the size of Greenland, the consequences of that misperception are real. Correcting the map does not change Africa. It changes how Africa is seen, and in global affairs, the two are not the same thing.
The Numbers: What the Map Gets Wrong
Source: True Size Of (interactive mapping tool); Southern Pulse (2026); UN General Assembly resolution A/80/L.104 (2026); Correct the Map campaign (correctthemap.org).
| Region / Country | True Area (km2) | On Mercator Map | Distortion |
| Africa | 30.37 million | Appears similar to Greenland | Heavily undersized |
| Greenland | 2.166 million | Appears similar to Africa | 14x oversized |
| Russia | 17.1 million | Stretches across globe | Heavily oversized |
| USA + China + India + Europe | ~29 million combined | Appear larger than Africa | All fit inside Africa |
| DRC alone | 2.34 million | Appears small | Larger than Greenland |
Detailed Analysis
| Finding 1: Four Hundred and Fifty Years of a Shrunken ContinentGerardus Mercator published his world map in 1569 for European sailors. A straight line on a Mercator chart is a constant compass bearing, making it invaluable at sea. The price is area. The projection stretches landmasses as they approach the poles, so Europe, Russia, Canada, and Greenland are significantly inflated, while Africa, straddling the equator, appears near its true size. Because Mercator became the default map in classrooms and digital platforms, generations grew up thinking Europe was bigger than South America, that Russia dwarfed Africa, and that Greenland was roughly Africa’s equal. None of these are accurate. All of them have been the world’s default mental map for 450 years. |
| Finding 2: The UN Vote: What Happened and What It MeansOn September 4, 2026, the UN General Assembly adopted resolution A/80/L.104, Correct the Map, by 164 votes to 1, with 6 abstentions. Togo’s Foreign Minister Robert Dussey told the Assembly that a fair map does not change the geography of the world, it changes how we see the world. France co-sponsored the resolution and announced it would abandon Mercator in official communications. The resolution frames the change as an act of cognitive justice and memorial reparation, linking the distortion to the same historical period that produced colonialism. The United States cast the only vote against, calling it a radical ideological project. The resolution is non-binding and explicitly preserves Mercator for navigation. |
| Finding 3: The Case For: Why Correcting the Map MattersThe case for correction goes beyond symbolism. First, accuracy: a map that distorts size is simply wrong for any purpose other than navigation. Students who learn on a Mercator map carry a distorted mental model into every future decision. Second, perception and power: visual representations of size correlate with assumed importance. A continent that looks small gets treated as small in media coverage, investment decisions and policy discussions. Third, Africa’s actual scale: 30.37 million km2, 1.5 billion people, the world’s largest free trade area, the largest reserves of cobalt, manganese and platinum, and the fastest-growing youth population on Earth. Africa is not a small continent. Its map should not look like one. Fourth, Equal Earth solves the problem without creating new ones: it preserves true area while keeping shapes familiar. |
| Finding 4: The Case Against: Why the Debate Is Not SettledThe resolution has legitimate critics. First, the practical objection: Mercator is embedded so deeply in global navigation systems, digital mapping and existing educational materials that transition is neither cheap nor simple. Google Maps, Apple Maps and most navigation platforms use Mercator precisely because it is mathematically consistent for direction at local scale. A UN resolution cannot compel Google to change its code. Second, the technical objection: every flat map distorts something. Equal area projections preserve size but compromise shape, particularly at map edges. Mercator preserves shape and direction. No single projection does everything well. Third, the political objection: critics, including the US, argue that reframing a cartographic standard as colonial justice is an ideological distraction from concrete development challenges. Changing a map does not build a hospital. |
| Finding 5: What Happens Next: Implementation and Its LimitsFollowing the vote, Speak Up Africa and Africa No Filter announced implementation focus across five areas: the UN system’s own publications; education through African Union member state curricula; media and publishing; technology companies including Google and Microsoft; and community-level civil society campaigns. France has already committed to dropping Mercator. Ghana and other AU member states are expected to follow with updates to national education policies. The Mercator projection will not disappear. Its dominance in navigation is unchallenged. But for the first time in 450 years, the world has formally acknowledged that a better option exists for everything else, and that using it is a matter of justice, not just geography. |
Recommendations
1. Ghana Education Service: Update the national curriculum to require equal-area map projections in geography and social studies classes at all levels. This low-cost, high-impact change corrects what Ghanaian students learn about the world and Ghana’s place in it.
2. Ministry of Information and Media Outlets: Adopt the Equal Earth projection as the standard for all official government publications, presentations and communications that include world maps. Newsrooms should follow the same standard when publishing maps in print and digital formats.
3. African Union Commission: Move quickly on the education implementation plan announced by Speak Up Africa and Africa No Filter. The resolution’s value is entirely in its adoption. A non-binding vote that produces no behavioural change is a press release, not progress.
4. Ghana Investment Promotion Centre and Trade Bodies: Use accurate equal-area maps in all investor-facing materials. Showing potential partners Africa’s true size relative to other markets is a legitimate investment promotion tool, not a political statement.
5. Technology Companies Operating in Africa: Google, Microsoft and Apple should offer equal-area projection options in their mapping products, at minimum as a toggle feature. The infrastructure to do this exists. The UN resolution provides political cover to act.
Methodology Snapshot
This is a Tier 3 Rapid Research publication drawing on verified official records, confirmed news reporting and publicly available cartographic data. Primary sources include UN General Assembly resolution A/80/L.104, adopted September 4, 2026; Al Jazeera, NBC News, UN News and the UN Office of the Special Adviser on Africa reporting on the vote; the True Size Of interactive mapping tool for area comparisons; Southern Pulse (2026) for distortion analysis; the Equal Earth projection documentation by Savric, Patterson and Jenny (2018); and the Correct the Map campaign at correctthemap.org. All size comparisons come from the True Size Of tool and are cross-referenced with standard geographic databases. The analysis covers the Mercator projection’s history from 1569 to the September 2026 UN vote.
Limitations
- The UN resolution adopted September 4, 2026 is non-binding. Adoption by governments, schools, and technology companies is voluntary and will vary by country. Implementation timelines are unknown at the time of publication.
- The research on links between visual map size and investment or policy attention is correlational, not causal. This brief does not claim that map distortion directly causes lower investment in Africa, only that perception and visual representation are connected.
- Area comparisons in this brief use the True Size Of interactive mapping tool and UN-sourced geographic data. Minor variations exist across geographic databases due to measurement methodology.
- The Equal Earth projection, while superior for area representation, has its own trade-offs. Shape accuracy at the edges of the map and at high latitudes is compromised relative to Mercator. No flat map is perfect.
Sources and References
1. United Nations General Assembly. Resolution A/80/L.104: Correct the Map: Rebalancing Global Cartographic Representation and Promoting Equitable Representation of the World’s Regions. September 4, 2026. un.org
2. UN News. “UN tells the world: Stop making Africa look small.” September 5, 2026. news.un.org
3. UN Office of the Special Adviser on Africa. “Victory for Africa as UN Votes on Resolution to Correct the Map.” September 2026. un.org/osaa
4. Al Jazeera. “UN votes to adopt new world map that reflects Africa’s true size.” September 4, 2026. aljazeera.com
5. Al Jazeera. “How big is Africa really? Why the UN voted to change the world map.” September 5, 2026. aljazeera.com
6. Al Jazeera. “Can you guess the real size of each country on the new world map?” September 6, 2026. aljazeera.com
7. NBC News / Associated Press. “U.N. General Assembly endorses a new world map that shows Africa’s size more accurately.” September 5, 2026. nbcnews.com
8. Social News XYZ. “Africa corrects the map: UN General Assembly adopts Togo-led resolution by 164 votes to 1.” September 9, 2026. socialnews.xyz
9. 2OceansVibe News. “UN Backs Equal Earth Map That Shows Africa At Full Size.” September 2026. 2oceansvibe.com
10. Mappr. “The UN’s New World Map: Africa’s True Size, Mapped.” September 2026. mappr.co
11. Diplomacy and Law. “UN New World Map: Legal Effect of the Equal Earth Resolution.” September 2026. diplomacyandlaw.com
12. Correct The Map Campaign. correctthemap.org
13. Southern Pulse. “True Size of Countries: Compare Real Sizes and Map Distortion.” May 2026. southernpulse.org
14. Atlas.co. “Map Projections: Mercator vs the True Size of Each Country.” September 2026. atlas.co
15. Green Earth Blog. “The true size of Africa.” May 2023. green.earth
16. Wikipedia. Equal Earth Projection. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Earth_projection
17. The True Size Of. Interactive mapping tool. thetruesize.com