UN to vote on adopting new world map that shows Africa’s true scale (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 1 week ago by Powderhorn@beehaw.org to c/news@beehaw.org

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The UN general assembly will vote on Friday on a resolution for the world to formally phase out the traditional Mercator map of the globe in favour of one that more accurately displays Africa’s size.

Robert Dussey, Togo’s foreign affairs minister, said the resolution was sponsored by Togo and backed by countries including the African Union’s 54 other member states. He did not specify the total number.

“This discussion is not a political discussion [but] a scientific discussion, because there is scientific proof so we all have to accept the reality,” he said.

On Friday before the vote, France’s foreign minister spoke in support of the resolution. “[We] will abandon the Mercator projection in favour of map representations tailored to specific uses, more faithful to actual surface areas and in line with the recommendations of cartographers and scientists,” Jean-Noël Barrot said during a speech at the Sorbonne University in Paris, in a move seen as part of France’s push to increase goodwill among its former colonies.

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[-] Laser@feddit.org 12 points 1 week ago

Well, Mercator projection is most helpful for maps used in nautical navigation:

The Mercator projection was designed for use in marine navigation because of its unique property of representing any course of constant bearing as a straight segment. Such a course, known as a rhumb (alternately called a rhumb line or loxodrome) is preferred in marine navigation because ships can sail in a constant compass direction. This reduces the difficult, error-prone course corrections that otherwise would be necessary when sailing a different course.

That being said, is a bad projection for other purposes, and it's probably better to use other projections in general education. That being said, any projection will have certain disadvantages under the right or wrong conditions.

Probably a good call to switch, though I refuse to believe it was kept so long for other reasons than "this is how it's always been"

this post was submitted on 04 Sep 2026

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