The UN General Assembly approved a reform of the use of world maps with more realistic proportions. The relevant resolution was supported by 164 countries on Friday; the United States voted against it, and six countries abstained, UNN reports, citing DW.
Details
The resolution was introduced by Togo and the African Union, calling on international organizations and states to use Equal Earth maps in the future. This type of world map reflects the actual sizes of the continents more accurately: Africa appears larger on it, while the United States is reduced in size.
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This map is intended to replace the so-called Mercator map, which is associated with the cartographer Gerardus Mercator, who was born in Flanders in 1512. The Mercator map was developed for maritime navigation and artificially enlarged areas at high latitudes.
"Maps shape our understanding of the world," Togo's Foreign Minister Robert Dussey said at the UN General Assembly. "But they are never neutral." There is a risk that they "present a distorted picture of our planet and reinforce misconceptions passed down from generation to generation."
We would add
The Equal Earth map was created in 2018 by a group of geographers to ensure that the depiction of the continents corresponds as closely as possible to their actual sizes. As a result, Africa, Latin America, South Asia and Oceania are shown as significantly larger than on conventional world maps.