UN General Assembly Overwhelmingly Supports Equal Earth Map, Challenging Centuries of Eurocentric Distortion
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In a decisive 164-to-1 vote, the UN General Assembly endorsed the Equal Earth map projection, a move led by African nations to correct the colonial legacy of distorted world maps. The United States stood alone in opposition, clinging to outdated representations that have long privileged the Global North.
On Friday, the United Nations General Assembly took a historic step toward decolonizing global cartography by voting to support a resolution urging member states to adopt the Equal Earth projection. This map, which accurately represents continental landmasses in proportion to their real surface area, was championed by a coalition of African nations determined to challenge centuries of Eurocentric distortion. The measure passed with overwhelming support from 164 countries, while the United States—true to its imperialist legacy—was the sole nation to vote against, with six others abstaining.
Togo’s Foreign Minister Robert Dussey, who spearheaded the initiative, emphasized the profound impact of maps on education, imagination, and collective consciousness, stating that the resolution “reaffirms African reality.” The text of the resolution calls out the traditional Mercator projection, a relic of 16th-century European navigation, for grossly distorting the world by inflating the size of northern regions and minimizing the Global South. This deliberate misrepresentation has long served to elevate Europe and North America while diminishing Africa and South America.
The UN document highlights that Africa, with its 30.3 million square kilometres, is as large as the United States, China, India, and most of Europe combined—yet on Mercator maps, it is reduced to the size of Greenland. Similarly, Latin America, Oceania, and South Asia together comprise over 64 million square kilometres, more than 40 percent of the world’s land, while Europe covers just 10.2 million.
France, breaking from its colonial past, co-sponsored the resolution and pledged to abandon the Mercator projection. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot declared that while the new map “does not change the world, correcting a distorted representation is already an act of truth.” In stark contrast, the U.S. representative, Yaryna Ferencevych, dismissed the debate as a distraction, claiming it undermines the UN’s credibility—an argument that reveals a refusal to confront the enduring legacy of Western dominance.
The Equal Earth projection, created in 2018 by cartographers Bojan Savrić, Tom Patterson, and Bernhard Jenny, restores the true proportions of the world’s continents and challenges the visual supremacy of the Global North. While the resolution is non-binding, it marks a powerful call for educational and official institutions worldwide to embrace a more just and accurate vision of our planet.