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Should the UN vote to change the world map to make all country sizes equal?
Should the UN vote to change the world map to make all country sizes equal?
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Featured on Sep 4, 2026 (1 month ago).
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Today the UN General Assembly votes on whether to officially replace the 450-year-old Mercator world map with the "Equal Earth" map which shows all regions in their true size.
[update: the UN resolution was passed]
On a Mercator Projection map, which we're all familiar with, lines of latitude remain horizontal straight lines, but the space between them increases as you move away from the equator. This makes countries such as Greenland, Canada, and Russia look huge while Africa and South America look far smaller than they really are.
The resolution called "Correct the Map" (officially "A/80/L.104") is submitted by Togo on behalf of the African Union and is set for today (Friday 4th September, 2026) at the UN General Assembly. The resolution is championed by Togo's foreign minister Robert Dussey.
You can read his statement at robertdussey.com/en/correct-the-map
See the image gallery above for the "Equal Earth" map which shows Africa in true proportion to other countries.
What do you all think? Happy Friday!
I see it was approved, interestingly, the US were the only country to vote against. Hmm.
It is well past time for Equal Earth to be enacted.
This website lets you move any country around on the Mercator map to see how the size changes depending on where it's projected:
thetruesize.com
One criticism I have of the "Equal Earth" map is the world is seen looking directly above Europe/Africa. This style of projection distorts the countries to the side. E.g. Asia and Australia.
It is jarring to look at the actual sized map. After so many yrs of seeing the Mercator version, it is odd to see the equal earth version. I am undecided.
Since it is a better visual representation and closer to reality, I do think it is a good decision.
What about Australia, New Zealand and Japan which are now bent out of shape and squeezed at the edge?
Well, it's definitely not perfect, but just the fact that Greenland, for example, is not the size of the African continent is already better. I do understand that some countries, for example, the ones that you mentioned above, are negatively affected. But if we think about numbers, aren't more countries "disadvantaged" by the previous model?
About 2.4 billion people (30% of the world's population) live in East Asia, Southeast Asia and Oceania whose countries are squashed by this new UN map.
I get what you mean about the edge distortion, but it's important to clarify that those countries aren't actually 'squashed' or reduced in size. The map preserves their exact physical area. While the new map slightly curves Australia and Japan at the edges to make a flat image work, it finally gives the vast majority of the world's population their accurate geographic scale. No flat map is perfect, but this is a much fairer trade-off for education and global representation. So while I get your point about that 30% of the population, if we have to choose, isn't getting it right for the other 70% a much better outcome?
I get your point but only 2.7 billion people live in the centre of the map, so why substantially deteriorate the accuracy of the map for 2.4 billion people in the East. It's not an "equal map" as claimed.