UN General Assembly Adopts Resolution to Promote Equal Earth Map Projection
11 sources across 10 countries · 1 of them is linked to a state
Who reported this
- Scroll.in
- The Indian Express
- Politico Europe
- Folha de S.Paulo
- France 24
- Frankfurter Allgemeine
- Telex
- The Jakarta Post
- Al Jazeera
- Business Day
- BBC News
What the colours mean
- Left
- Centre-left
- Centre
- Centre-right
- Right
- A hatched block means the outlet is affiliated with, or controlled by, a state.
Political lean describes where an outlet sits within the politics of its own country. It is never a position on a single global scale.
Political lean is comparable inside one country and not across them, which is why the bar groups by country first. Publicly funded broadcasters are not marked as state-linked.
The owner of each outlet is listed as a matter of record, not as a judgement about the outlet.
The United Nations General Assembly voted on Friday to adopt a resolution promoting the Equal Earth cartographic projection, a map that more accurately represents the relative sizes of continents. The resolution, which was spearheaded by Togo and supported by 164 member states, encourages the use of this projection over the traditional Mercator projection. Six countries abstained from the vote, including Ukraine, Serbia, and Estonia. The United States was the only country to vote against the initiative.
The Mercator projection, created by Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator in 1569, was designed primarily for maritime navigation because it allows sailors to plot courses using constant compass bearings. However, the projection distorts the size of landmasses by inflating regions near the poles and shrinking those near the equator. This results in Africa appearing roughly the same size as Greenland, despite Africa being approximately 14 times larger. The Equal Earth projection, developed in 2018, aims to correct these distortions to provide a more accurate representation of continental landmasses, particularly for Africa, Latin America, South Asia, and Oceania.
France co-sponsored the resolution and announced it would abandon the Mercator projection, with Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot describing the correction as an act of truth. Togo's Foreign Minister Robert Dussey stated that maps influence collective perceptions and that a fair map changes how the world is seen. While the resolution encourages the adoption of the new map in education and technology, it is nonbinding and does not ban the use of the Mercator projection.
The United States opposed the resolution, with representative Yaryna Ferencevych describing the move as part of a larger and more radical ideological project. The US argued that the resolution mocks the purpose of the UN and distracts from genuine global problems by focusing on 16th century map projects and cognitive justice.
How each side framed it
- Left
- These outlets highlighted the resolution as a means of fighting symbolic minimisation and decolonising global perspectives.
- Centre-left
- These outlets emphasized the importance of correcting historical distortions and the role of the map in shaping perceptions of the Global South.
- Centre
- These outlets focused on the procedural facts of the vote and the technical differences between the map projections.
- Centre-right
- These outlets framed the event as a reform of world maps to improve accuracy and noted the specific countries that abstained.
Sources
- Centre-left Al Jazeera: How big is Africa really? Why the UN voted to change the world map
- Centre BBC News: What different world maps get right - and what they get wrong
- Centre-right Business Day: UN General Assembly endorses a new world map that shows Africa’s size more accurately
- Centre Folha de S.Paulo: Why Brazil 'grew' in new map approved by UN
- Centre France 24: The UN adopts a new cartographic projection: Africa regains its real size
- Centre-right Frankfurter Allgemeine: "Equal Earth": UN votes for new world map
- Centre Politico Europe: UN backs effort to depict Africa correctly on maps despite US opposition
- Left Scroll.in: United Nations adopts new map showing Africa larger
- Centre Telex: They voted that the world should gradually switch to a map on which Africa is no longer small
- Centre The Indian Express: UN adopts Equal Earth map: Why no flat map can accurately show the globe
- Centre The Indian Express: World map we use is ‘lying’ about size of Africa. The UN wants to fix it
- Centre-left The Jakarta Post: Africa bigger, US smaller: UN adopts new map
100% of the statements in this article were traced back to the source articles listed above.