The Mercator map has distorted Africa’s size for 450 years. The UN just voted to replace it.

For 450 years, most world maps have quietly lied to us: they make Greenland and Africa look about the same size. In reality, Africa is roughly 14 times bigger. Greenland covers about 2.2 million square kilometers; Africa covers 30.4 million. On September 5, 2026, that mistake finally got a chance at a fix when 164 countries voted at the United Nations to replace the old map.

The map in question is the Mercator projection, designed in 1569 by Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator to help European explorers navigate the globe. Its distortion isn't an accident—it's math. You cannot flatten a sphere onto a page without squeezing or stretching something. Mercator chose to stretch countries near the poles, making them look enormous, while shrinking countries near the equator, making them look small. The result: Greenland looks as big as Africa, Russia sprawls endlessly across the top of the world, and Europe sits smugly at the center.

The campaign group #CorrectTheMap put the error in plain terms: you could fit the United States, China, India, Japan, Mexico, and much of Europe inside Africa and still have room to spare.

The fix is called the Equal Earth projection, developed by cartographers in 2018. It keeps the relative sizes of all landmasses far more accurately, showing Africa in something close to its true proportions. In February 2026, the African Union's 54 member states formally adopted it. The UN resolution, titled "Correct the Map" and sponsored by Togo, passed with backing from France, the United Kingdom, and most of the world. Only one country voted against it: the United States. Six nations abstained.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot announced France's ministry would stop using the Mercator map. Togolese Foreign Minister Robert Dussey, one of the resolution's architects, summed it up: "A fair world begins with a fair map." Barrot added, "Changing the map obviously doesn't change the world. But correcting a representation that distorts it is already an act of truth."

The resolution is non-binding, so no country is legally forced to change. But the hope is that schools, governments, and international bodies will now switch to Equal Earth.

For advocates, this was never just about geography. "Africa's misrepresentation on world maps is not just a cartographic error. It is a narrative issue," said Lerato Mogoatlhe of Africa No Filter, one of the groups behind the campaign. Kenyan geographer Kioko Muendo agrees: a continent that looks small on a map tends to be imagined as peripheral, which has quietly downplayed Africa's resources, population, and investment potential for generations.

The Equal Earth projection went from creation to UN resolution in just eight years. Whether classrooms and briefing rooms adopt it quickly will decide how much practical difference this vote makes. But one thing is certain: a more honest map of the world just became a whole lot closer.