UN votes to adopt new map showing Africa's true scale

The United Nations General Assembly has officially endorsed a new world map, adopting a resolution that encourages the use of projections which more accurately depict the true scale of continents, especially Africa. This move, spearheaded by Togo and the African Union's "Correct the Map" campaign, aims to address the long-standing distortions of the traditional 16th-century Mercator projection. The Mercator map is known to visually inflate the size of landmasses closer to the poles while shrinking those near the equator, leading to a misrepresentation where Africa, for example, appears comparable in size to Greenland despite being approximately 14 times larger.

The resolution passed overwhelmingly with 164 votes in favor. The United States cast the sole vote against the measure, describing it as a "radical ideological project," while six other nations abstained.

While the UN resolution does not prohibit the continued use of the Mercator projection, which remains useful for maritime navigation, it promotes the "Equal Earth" projection and other similar equal-area maps. The initiative encourages governments, educational institutions, international organizations, and technology companies to adopt these more accurate cartographic representations to foster a better global understanding of the world's true geographical proportions.