UN General Assembly adopts new world map standard to correct historical distortion from Mercator projection

World maps shape our view of the world. The United Nations, at Africa's initiative, is now trying to correct a historical distortion.

Column: Afrobeat By Dominic Johnson September 6, 2026 | 4:39 p.m.

UNO recommends replacement: the Mercator projection of 1569 should give way internationally to the Equal Area projection of 2018. Photo: African Union

The earth is not flat. No two-dimensional representation of the world accurately reflects three-dimensional reality. Cartographers have faced this dilemma in different ways for centuries. But world maps should have as precise a connection to reality as possible — that has actually been the consensus since the Renaissance. You might think this is quite simple, but it is not. Anyone who has ever looked at a globe will immediately notice how different the world appears than on any flat world map.

Antarctica and Greenland are surprisingly tiny; huge Africa almost pushes its small northern neighbor Europe to the edge. On common European world maps, however, it is the other way around. The polar regions of the world are huge, while Africa shrinks to an appendage of Europe.

On September 4th, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a new international standard for world maps.

A New Standard for Area Accuracy

In the future, all countries and continents will be represented area-wise. The "Equal Earth Projection" is intended to correct what almost all world maps have been doing wrong: the further a country is from the equator, the larger it appears.

The most famous international standard, the so-called Mercator projection, is the most extreme example. It makes Greenland the size of Africa, and Europe extends over a similar area to its southern neighboring continent. Siberia is huge; Antarctica is a seemingly endless expanse.

It is somehow clear to most people that none of this can be exactly true. But how completely wrong it is astonishes almost everyone who is shown the facts:

• Africa is actually 14 times larger than Greenland
• Greenland is just the size of Saudi Arabia
• Africa is as big as Russia, China, and the USA combined

The Mercator Problem

The Mercator projection, developed in 1569 for European seafaring, has the irreplaceable advantage in navigation that it is true to angles. A straight line on a Mercator map corresponds to a straight line on the globe. The trick: The lines of longitude always run parallel to each other on the map. In reality, they converge at the two poles and diverge further towards the equator.

At the equator, one degree of longitude corresponds to a distance of 60 nautical miles, around 111.3 kilometers. At the north and south poles, the distance is zero.

Key comparisons:

| Location | Circumference at that latitude | |----------|-------------------------------| | Equator | ~40,075 km | | 50th parallel (e.g., Mainz) | ~25,730 km | | 70th parallel (northern Alaska, Canada) | ~13,700 km |

On a Mercator map, all of these distances appear the same. To make this possible, the latitudes are moved further and further apart, and the areas depicted become larger and larger.

Beyond Navigation

Shipping and aviation need conformal maps. But maps are not only a means of navigation — they also contain a representation of the world. Different means are needed for different purposes. A distorted image of the world produces a distorted worldview.

Would so many people think Russia is overwhelmingly all-powerful if they could see that the country actually fits into Africa's Sahara and Sahel? Would US President Donald Trump so persistently claim Greenland if he knew that in reality it is not a continent the size of Africa at a central point between America and Europe?