Togo proposes to the UN to abandon the Mercator projection in favor of a map more faithful to reality

A mapping more faithful to reality. Before the United Nations General Assembly on Friday, September 4, Togo is bringing forward a resolution aimed at officially abandoning the traditional map of the globe based on the Mercator projection in favor of a map representing the size of Africa more accurately. This draft resolution entitled "Correct the Map" is the culmination of the campaign of the same name, which advocates for the "Equal Earth" projection reflecting the regions of the world, particularly Africa, more fairly.

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On most world maps, Africa appears to be as large as Greenland, whereas the continent is actually 14 times larger than the island attached to Denmark. The same goes for the European Union, which appears barely smaller than Africa, which is in fact seven times larger. These maps rely on the projection of a 16th-century Flemish cartographer, Gerardus Mercator, designed for navigation and still very widely used. This Eurocentric projection stretches areas near the poles while shrinking equatorial regions, making regions like Europe and North America much larger than they actually are.

Representing the Earth on a two-dimensional map necessarily involves distortions; nevertheless, in 2018, cartographers Tom Patterson, Bojan Šavrič, and Bernhard Jenny attempted to find a balance between shapes, proportions, and scales and developed the "Equal Earth" projection. Africa, but also Latin America, South Asia, and Oceania, appear much larger there than on the Mercator projection.

"One of the biggest disinformation campaigns in the world"

Five centuries later, several African voices are calling for the replacement of the "Mercator" map. "For centuries, the Mercator projection has minimized Africa, fueling a narrative that Africa is smaller, peripheral, and less important," regrets Fara Ndiaye, co-founder of the pan-African organization Speak Up Africa. She is behind the "Correct the Map" campaign, launched in April 2025 with another organization, Africa No Filter. "The current size of the map of Africa is wrong. It is one of the biggest disinformation campaigns in the world," asserts Moky Makura, Executive Director of Africa No Filter.

#CorrectTheMap encourages the use of the "Equal Earth" world map. "You could fit the United States, China, India, Japan, Mexico, and a large part of Europe onto the African continent and there would still be room left," states the petition, which gathered over 11,000 signatures on Change.org.

The 55 member countries of the African Union supported the campaign in August 2025 and, last April, mandated Togo to lead the adoption of a resolution to this effect at the UN. "This debate is not a political debate [but] a scientific debate, because scientific proof exists and we must all accept this reality," according to the Togolese Minister of Foreign Affairs, Robert Dussey, who traveled to New York for Friday's vote. "The text encourages a better understanding of the limitations of commonly used projections, and invites international institutions, educational systems, the media, and digital platforms to adopt representations that are more faithful to the actual scale of Africa and other regions of the world."

A text co-sponsored by France

According to the Togolese Minister of Foreign Affairs, the vote by member countries on Friday will reveal their "true face." According to RFI, he is referring to the resolution debated by the UN last April, qualifying the trade of enslaved Africans as the gravest crime against humanity—a text adopted by 123 countries, but rejected by the United States and on which several European countries, including France, abstained. This time, Paris supports the reform of world cartography. "The Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs will abandon the Mercator projection in favor of cartographic representations adapted to use cases, more faithful to actual surface areas, and compliant with the requirements of cartographers and scientists," Jean-Noël Barrot declared on Friday.

UN resolutions are not binding, but if the "Correct the Map" text is adopted, it could lead to an update of representations in international organizations, and even beyond. "We will have succeeded when children everywhere open their textbooks and see Africa as it truly is: vast, central, and indispensable," emphasizes Fara Ndiaye of Speak Up Africa.