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The United Nations General Assembly has passed a resolution calling on governments, schools and international institutions to move away from map projections that distort the relative size of continents, with Africa among the most affected.
The resolution, titled “Correct the Map,” was led by Togo and co-sponsored by all 54 African Union member states, including Zambia. It passed with broad support.
Mercator projection under scrutiny
At the centre of the resolution is the Mercator projection, which remains widely used in classrooms, atlases and digital mapping platforms around the world. The projection distorts the apparent size of land masses based on their distance from the equator, with regions closer to the poles appearing disproportionately large.
The practical effect is that Africa, which sits across the equator, appears roughly the same size as Greenland on Mercator-based maps. In reality, Africa is 14 times larger.
The resolution encourages the adoption of the 2018 Equal Earth projection, an equal-area map designed to represent continental sizes without the area distortion inherent in the Mercator model.
Zambia backs the push
Zambia’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Dr Chola Milambo, welcomed the resolution’s adoption and framed it as a step toward correcting long-standing misrepresentation.
He underscored that the vote marked a moment of recognition for Africa and other countries whose geography has been visually diminished on world maps for centuries.
Non-binding but potentially far-reaching
The resolution is non-binding, meaning it does not compel governments or institutions to change the maps they use. It does, however, carry political weight as a formal expression of the General Assembly’s position.
Its passage is expected to feed into discussions around textbook standards, atlas publishing and the default projections used by digital mapping platforms, where the Mercator projection remains a common default.
The push to revisit how maps represent the world is not new, but a UN General Assembly resolution formalising the concern gives the issue a higher profile in international policy circles. The Equal Earth projection it recommends was developed in 2018 specifically to address the shortcomings of existing equal-area projections while maintaining a shape that looks familiar to general audiences.
Last Updated on September 11, 2026 by Nick Ross
