Africa Gets Bigger, US & EuropeShrink On New UN-BackedWorld Map

Plan B
4 hours ago
2 min read

World map graphic titled Equal Earth-Countries of the World with headline Africa gets bigger, US and Europe shrink.

The United Nations has voted to support a new world map designed to more accurately reflect the relative size of continents, making Africa, Latin America, South Asia and Oceania appear larger while reducing the apparent size of North America and Europe.

The map uses the Equal Earth projection, which preserves the relative area of countries and continents more accurately than the widely used Mercator projection.

The Mercator map, developed in the 16th century, significantly distorts the size of land masses as they move further from the Equator.

As a result, countries and regions in the Northern Hemisphere, including Greenland and parts of Europe, can appear much larger than they actually are compared with Africa.

Africa has a land area of about 30.4 million sq km, making it roughly 14 times larger than Greenland, despite the two appearing similar in size on many conventional world maps.

The Equal Earth projection addresses such distortions while preserving the recognisable shapes of the world's continents.

However, it was actually developed in 2018 by cartographers Bojan Šavrič, Tom Patterson and Bernhard Jenny, years before the latest UN resolution.

The United States was reportedly the only country to vote against the UN resolution, while six countries abstained.

Following the resolution, Togo plans to update its school geography materials by the end of 2026.

The resolution also encourages governments, educational institutions, international organisations and technology companies to adopt equal-area projections such as Equal Earth, particularly when comparing the relative sizes of countries and continents.

The move follows an initiative led by Togo and backed by the African Union, with Togo's Foreign Minister Robert Dussey framing it partly as an effort to address historical and colonial perceptions of Africa.

An advocacy campaign, #CorrectTheMap, has also been backed by organisations including Africa No Filter and Speak Up Africa. The campaign argues that inaccurate visual representations of Africa can shape perceptions of the continent's size, importance and place in the world.