The UN General Assembly (UNGA) adopted a non-binding Correct the Map resolution on September 4, 2026, encouraging the global community to use the Equal Earth projection instead of the 16th Century Mercator map which has been in use for nearly 500 years. The UNGA also decided to use a new map, named Equal Earth, for this purpose.

The world body has argued that the traditional Mercator map distorts the relative sizes of the continents, severely shrinking their apparent size near the equator, like Africa. It also makes northern regions look much larger than they really are. Hence, Greenland appears to be roughly the same size as Africa on the Mercator map, although Africa is actually about 14 times larger.

On the other hand, the Equal Earth projection displays the true relative sizes of the continents and also fixes the scale distortions found in older maps. Incidentally, Gerardus Mercator (March 5, 1512 – December 2, 1594), the Flemish (present-day Belgian)-German geographer and cartographer, published his famous world map using the Mercator projection in 1569.

It may be noted that Mercator designed his 1569 world map projection to be conformal, meaning it accurately preserves local angles and shapes. However, the balance of their relative sizes was not entirely correct. It happened primarily because a three-dimensional sphere (the shape of the Earth) was being represented on a two-dimensional map. As a result, the Mercator projection distorts the Earth by stretching a round globe onto a flat surface, making regions far from the equator or in the Northern Hemisphere (primarily the Americas and Europe) look much larger than they actually are, while regions near the equator appear smaller.

In 2018, Tom Patterson, Bojan Šavrič and Bernhard Jenny produced the Equal Earth projection in an attempt to offer a true representation of the world as a sphere in a two-dimensional format and to reduce the distortion. In this projection, the relative areas of the continents are represented as accurately as possible. Šavrič has stressed: “The Equal Earth projection that we created preserves the relative surface areas of the continents and depicts their sizes as accurately as possible, just as they appear on a sphere.“

On September 4, a total of 171 UN member-states participated in a vote at the UNGA, with 164 countries voting in favour of the resolution, one voting against (the US) and six abstaining (Estonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Moldova, Serbia and Ukraine). Those 164 countries supported the use of maps that depict the actual size of the Earth with greater accuracy than the 16th Century Mercator projection, specifically the Equal Earth projection. Previously, Togo, on behalf of the 54-nation African Group and backed by the African Union (AU), submitted the proposal, titled Correct the Map, regarding map changes.

The US voted against the proposal, claiming that the unnecessary controversy over the map was created to divert attention from real issues, such as international peace, prosperity and diplomatic relations. Although passed by the UNGA, the use of Equal Earth has not been made mandatory for member-states.

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Published by Koushik Das

Koushik Das (born on May 16, 1976 in Kolkata) is a career journalist. Based in the Indian capital of New Delhi, Koushik writes mainly about foreign policies and current geopolitical issues, and rarely about other topics. His own political ideas are highly influenced by Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Michael Oakeshott and others. English philosopher and political theorist Oakeshott (Dec 11, 1901-Dec 19, 1990) says that “in political activity, men sail a boundless and bottomless sea. There is neither harbour for shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither starting-place, nor appointed destination. But we have to keep afloat”. (Rationalism in Politics, 1962) As a student of Political Science, Koushik loves to share his views on issues, which have great impacts on his thought process (and also on India, South Asia and of course on the global community), with his readers through his website – Boundless Ocean of Politics. By doing so, he tries to keep himself afloat. You will find some of his articles in https://inserbia.info/today/ (https://inserbia.info/today/author/kou_das13_i/), as he has been trying to assess the global geopolitics since 2003. You can also mail him at kousdas@gmail.com View all posts by Koushik Das