By 164 votes to one, Member States on Friday endorsed
a resolution promoting map projections that more accurately
reflect the true size of continents – the culmination of
an African-led campaign against the 16th-century Mercator
projection, still the most widely used map in the
world.
The United States cast the sole vote against,
dismissing the initiative as part of a “radical
ideological project.”
Six countries – Estonia,
Georgia, Lithuania, Moldova, Serbia and Ukraine –
abstained.
The resolution does not ban the Mercator
projection or impose a replacement. Instead, it encourages
governments, schools, international organisations and
technology companies to use the Equal Earth projection and
other so-called equal-area maps when relative size matters,
and to teach the limitations of any flat map in representing
a spherical planet.
Behind that seemingly technical
debate lies a larger argument about history and power:
whether a map designed for European sailors in the 16th
century has, over generations, distorted not only geography
but perceptions of a whole, vast and complex
continent.
“Maps shape our understanding of the
world,” Robert Dussey, Togo’s foreign minister, said
before the vote. “They guide education, nourish the
imagination, and influence collective
perceptions.”
Made small
Gerardus Mercator,
a Flemish cartographer, devised his projection in 1569 to
solve a practical problem of maritime navigation. Because
straight lines on his map correspond to constant compass
directions, sailors could use it to plot their
courses.
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But preserving direction came at the expense
of area. Landmasses appear increasingly enlarged the farther
they are from the Equator.
Greenland, for
instance, can look roughly comparable in size to Africa,
even though Africa is about 14 times larger. Northern
Europe and North America are similarly magnified, relative
to equatorial regions.
Despite its original
navigational purpose, Mercator remains common in
educational, media, digital and official materials. The
resolution says those distortions have contributed to the
“symbolic minimization” of Africa and perpetuated an
unbalanced view of the world.
‘A fair
map’
Togo led negotiations on behalf of the African
group, building on a campaign backed by the African
Union.
The resolution describes correcting such
distortions as an act of “cognitive justice and memorial
reparation” and points to Equal Earth, developed in 2018,
as a projection that more accurately represents relative
size.
Mr. Dussey emphasized that the effort was not
meant to condemn Mercator, whose usefulness for navigation
he acknowledged, or to impose a single
projection.
“A fair map does not change the
geography of the world, it changes how we see the world,”
he said.
Washington objects
The United States
saw something far more political in the
effort.
“This resolution mocks the work and purpose
of this institution,” the American representative said,
arguing that what was presented as an innocuous attempt to
update cartographic proportions was part of “the much
larger and more radical ideological project it belongs
to.”
The representative singled out the
resolution’s references to reparations and “cognitive
justice,” calling initiatives like it “barnacles on our
work here and the reason this institution is losing its
credibility.”
France moved in the opposite
direction. Hours before the vote, Foreign Minister
Jean-Noël Barrot announced Paris was planning to abandon
Mercator for its maps of the world, aligning his Government
with the broader effort championed by the African
Union.
The shift means France itself, like the United
States and Russia, will appear smaller relative to
equatorial countries.
It illustrates the unusual
dynamics of this decades-long debate. Equal-area maps do not
make Africa larger; they remove the exaggeration Mercator
gives landmasses closer to the poles.
Borderline
revolt
Ukraine said it supported efforts to correct
historical distortions affecting Africa and other parts of
the Global South but objected to the way some maps using
Equal Earth depict Ukrainian territory occupied by
Russia.
Its representative warned that endorsing the
projection without adequate safeguards could open a
“Pandora’s box,” allowing maps to create ambiguity
over disputed territories.
The European Union
supported the resolution but addressed the same
concern.
Speaking on behalf of the bloc, Ireland
stressed that the measure applied only to the relative size
of landmasses and had no bearing on sovereignty, territorial
status or internationally recognized borders.
The bloc
also said its support did not constitute an endorsement of
the maps displayed on the Equal Earth
website.
Imperfect view
The resolution itself
acknowledges a fundamental problem that no vote can solve.
No projection can perfectly reproduce the curved surface of
the Earth on a plane. Each sacrifice something – area,
shape, distance or direction – and each is suited to
different purposes.
The measure is nonbinding, and
Mercator is not disappearing into the library vaults, never
to be seen again.
But Friday’s vote gave near
unanimous international backing to an argument which many
African governments have increasingly pressed: that the
choices we make over maps can shape how generations
understand the
world.
