The true representation of Africa; Why the UN decided to change the map after 457 years

On Friday, September 4, 2026, the United Nations General Assembly adopted an African-led resolution calling for more accurate representations of the relative size of the world's continents.

For years, the world has been looking at a distorted map and Africa is a victim of the misrepresentation. 

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On a familiar world map, Greenland can appear almost as large as Africa. Europe and North America also appear much bigger than their actual size relative to countries closer to the Equator but that is not Africa's true size.

The resolution, “Correct the Map” was approved by 164 countries, with 1 country voting against and 6 abstaining.

The Mercator projection, created by Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator in 1569, was designed mainly for navigation. It was used in the creation of the map and it distorted the size of landmasses, making regions near poles appear larger and areas closer to the equator appear smaller. This means Africa, much of which lies around the Equator and in the tropics, appears smaller than it actually is.

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The Equal Earth map was later designed with the aim of addressing the problem and misrepresentatio on the Mercator Map. It was developed by a team of cartographers in 2018 and the difference is that, it presents the size and shape of landmasses more accurately. The equal earth map was inspired by the 1963 Robinson projection - a map that shows the entire globe's surface at once.

Africa, the second largest continent, covers about 30.3 million square kilometres. If you look at the size of Greenland for example, it covers about 2.2 million square kilometres which means that Africa is roughly 14 times larger than Greenland.

Yet on the traditional Mercator map, Greenland can appear similar in size to Africa because of the projection's distortion. Africa is also large enough to contain the United States, China, India and most of Europe within its land area.

The General Assembly adopted a non-binding resolution encouraging governments, schools, publishers and technology companies to use map projections that show the relative size of continents more accurately.

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One of the projections highlighted by the resolution is the Equal Earth projection, which was specifically designed to preserve the relative areas of land masses.

Togo, which led the African initiative, argued at the UN that maps influence education, knowledge and people's understanding of the world.

Togo's Foreign Minister Robert Dussey told the General Assembly that maps “guide education, nourish the imagination, and influence collective perceptions.”