For generations, millions of people have grown up looking at a world map that makes Africa appear far smaller than it actually is.
Now, the United Nations has taken a historic step toward changing that picture.
In a landmark vote on September 4, the UN General Assembly overwhelmingly endorsed a resolution promoting more accurate ways of representing the size of the world’s continents, with Togo leading the African-backed campaign to move away from distortions associated with the centuries-old Mercator projection.
The resolution passed by 164 votes to one, with six countries abstaining. The United States was the sole country to vote against the measure.
The initiative, known as “Correct the Map,” promotes the use of the Equal Earth projection, an equal-area map designed to portray the relative size of continents much more accurately.
The controversy goes back centuries. Created in 1569 by Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator, the Mercator projection was designed primarily for navigation. It became one of the world’s most familiar map formats, but it comes with a major geographical trade-off: areas farther from the Equator become increasingly exaggerated in size.
That distortion can dramatically alter how people perceive the world. Greenland, for example, can appear almost comparable in size to Africa on a Mercator map. In reality, Africa is roughly 14 times larger than Greenland.
The problem is not that the Mercator projection is “wrong” for every purpose. It remains useful for navigation precisely because of the properties it preserves. The issue is what happens when a navigation-focused projection becomes the default image of the planet in classrooms, textbooks, media and digital platforms.
That is the imbalance Togo and its African partners are now challenging. Togo’s Foreign Minister, Robert Dussey, presented the initiative on behalf of the African Group at the United Nations.
The campaign did not emerge overnight. The African Union had already endorsed the Equal Earth projection earlier in 2026, following a broader African push to address what supporters describe as the symbolic and psychological consequences of distorted cartographic representations.
The argument is that maps influence how people understand geography, importance and even their place in the world. If an entire continent repeatedly appears smaller than it really is, supporters say, that visual distortion can reinforce outdated perceptions of Africa as geographically marginal.
The UN resolution explicitly recognizes that Mercator’s distortions disproportionately affect landmasses farther from the Equator and can contribute to the symbolic minimization of Africa. Despite the dramatic headlines surrounding the decision, the United Nations has not banned the Mercator projection.
The resolution is not legally binding. Instead, it encourages governments, international organizations, educational institutions and technology companies to adopt Equal Earth and other equal-area projections when accurately communicating the relative size of landmasses is important.
That distinction matters. Mercator is still expected to remain useful in fields where its navigational properties are important. The push is instead aimed at situations where the priority is giving people a fairer visual comparison of the world’s geography.
Togo has indicated that it intends to push the initiative further, including efforts to update educational materials and engage organizations involved in mapping and digital location services.
Africa covers approximately 30.3 million square kilometres, making it the world’s second-largest continent by land area. Its sheer scale becomes easier to appreciate when conventional map distortions are removed.
The continent is so vast that the combined land areas of the United States, China, India and several European countries can fit within it.
Yet on many familiar wall maps, Africa can look surprisingly modest beside regions located closer to the North and South Poles.
Equal Earth changes that visual relationship by preserving the relative area of landmasses more faithfully.
It does not make Africa larger. It simply makes the map less misleading about how large Africa already is.
The UN vote is unlikely to transform every map overnight. Textbooks will need updating. Publishers and educators will have to decide which projections are appropriate. Digital mapping companies will face questions about how their default world views represent continental scale.
And users will continue encountering different projections for different purposes. But supporters of the initiative argue that the significance of the vote goes beyond cartography.
The African Union has described the campaign as part of a broader effort to restore a more accurate and equitable representation of the continent in the global imagination.
The message from the African-led campaign is therefore bigger than any single map:
Africa did not suddenly become larger in September 2026.
The world simply received a powerful reminder that the way geography is drawn can profoundly influence the way geography is understood.
And after centuries of distorted visual proportions, Africa is demanding that the world look again.
The continent was never small.
The map was.
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