@science: The world map hanging in most classrooms has been quietly lying about Africa's size for 457 years. On Friday, the UN voted to stop endorsing that lie.   The United States cast the sole vote against the resolution. A U.S. representative to the UN Economic and Social Council described the measure as part of a broader "ideological project," arguing the General Assembly should be focused on other global priorities.   Nevertheless, the UN General Assembly passed the "Correct the Map" resolution 164 votes to 1, with 6 abstentions, encouraging governments, schools, and institutions to use the Equal Earth projection instead of the widely used Mercator map. The resolution was introduced by Togo on behalf of the African Union, alongside the Bahamas, and does not ban Mercator maps outright — it's non-binding, and Mercator remains genuinely useful for maritime navigation, which is exactly what it was designed for in 1569.   The distortion comes from the impossible math of flattening a sphere: Mercator stretches landmasses more severely the farther they sit from the equator. The result is dramatic — Greenland appears roughly the same size as Africa on a Mercator map, despite Africa's true land area being about 14 times larger. Equal Earth, developed in 2018 by cartographers Bojan Šavrič, Tom Patterson, and Bernhard Jenny, corrects this by preserving each continent's true relative area while keeping recognizable, visually familiar shapes.   Togo's Foreign Minister, Robert Dussey, argued the change matters beyond geography class, framing distorted maps as something that has shaped how Africa's scale, and by extension its significance, gets perceived globally. France's Foreign Minister announced the country would adopt the new standard directly.   source: United Nations General Assembly. (2026). "Correct the Map" Resolution, 80th Session.

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Saturday 05 September 2026 23:17:41 GMT