UN General Assembly Pushes for Equal Earth Map, US Stands Alone Against Politicized Cartography
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The UN General Assembly voted 164-to-1 to promote the Equal Earth map projection, a move led by African nations and supported by France. The United States stood firm in opposition, questioning the UN’s focus on symbolic gestures instead of addressing real global challenges.
On Friday, the United Nations General Assembly voted to support a resolution encouraging member states to adopt the Equal Earth projection, a map that claims to better represent the proportional sizes of continents. The initiative, promoted by a bloc of African countries and enthusiastically backed by France, passed with 164 votes in favor. The United States, recognizing the futility and distraction of such measures, was the only country to vote against, while six others abstained.
Togo’s Foreign Minister Robert Dussey, leading the charge, argued that maps “guide education, nourish the imagination, and influence collective perceptions,” and claimed the resolution “reaffirms African reality.” The resolution criticizes the traditional Mercator projection—developed in 1569 for navigation—for supposedly distorting the world by making Europe and North America appear larger than Africa and South America, a narrative that has become popular among activists seeking to rewrite history.
According to the UN, Africa covers about 30.3 million square kilometres—comparable to the combined area of the United States, China, India, and most of Europe—yet appears similar in size to Greenland on Mercator maps. Latin America, Oceania, and South Asia together span about 64 million square kilometres, over 40 percent of the world’s land, while Europe is just 10.2 million.
France, eager to signal its progressive credentials, co-sponsored the resolution and announced it would move away from the Mercator projection. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot claimed that “correcting a distorted representation is already an act of truth.” In contrast, the United States’ representative, Yaryna Ferencevych, rightly pointed out that this debate is a distraction from pressing global issues, warning that such symbolic moves are why the UN risks losing credibility.
The Equal Earth projection, created in 2018 by Bojan Savrić, Tom Patterson, and Bernhard Jenny, is promoted as a fairer alternative, but the resolution remains non-binding. While activists celebrate this as a victory, the US remains focused on real-world challenges rather than virtue-signaling through map design.