A map is not just a picture of the world; it is a picture of how we understand the world.” That idea has acquired a new significance at the United Nations, where the General Assembly has overwhelmingly backed a resolution calling for a more accurate representation of the size of the world’s continents. In a remarkable vote, 164 countries supported the resolution, the United States voted against it and six countries abstained. Led by Togo with the backing of the African Union, the initiative seeks to correct the distortions created by the world map that generations have grown up with.

Africa is set to appear much closer to its actual size, while Europe and North America will lose some of the visual prominence they acquire on the familiar Mercator projection. What appears at first to be a technical debate among cartographers has therefore become something much bigger: a statement from the Global South that the map of the world should reflect the world as it exists. The resolution promotes the wider use of equal-area map projections, including the Equal Earth projection, developed in 2018. The purpose is not to declare one map the only correct map, nor does the resolution ban the centuries-old Mercator projection.

It encourages the use of projections that preserve the relative area of continents when the purpose is to understand their actual geographical size. That distinction matters because every flat map of a spherical Earth involves some distortion. The real question is what a map chooses to preserve and what it chooses to distort. The Mercator projection preserves angles and directions, which made it exceptionally useful for navigation. Equal-area projections give priority to preserving the relative size of landmasses. In an age of satellites, GPS and digital cartography, the world no longer needs to depend on one projection for every purpose.

The Mercator map has a remarkable history. Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator introduced it in 1569 when European ships were venturing across oceans in search of new trade routes and territories. His objective was not to create a map that accurately compared the size of continents. It was to help sailors navigate. By preserving angles and directions, Mercator produced a revolutionary tool for maritime navigation. The map served its original purpose brilliantly. The........

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