The United Nations (UN) General Assembly has overwhelmingly passed an African-led resolution calling for a fundamental shift in how world maps represent the continent, seeking to replace centuries of cartographic distortion that shrinks Africa’s true geographic size.
The “Correct the Map” initiative was adopted by 164 votes to one, with six abstentions. As SABC UN correspondent Sherwin Bryce-Pease reports, the text targets the widely used Mercator projection,a 16th-century navigational tool that significantly exaggerates northern landmasses while visually minimising the African continent, which is actually three times larger than North America.
While the resolution does not ban the Mercator map, it encourages global adoption of equal-area projections that reflect accurate territorial proportions. The United States stood completely isolated as the sole nation voting against the measure, dismissing the effort as a “radical ideological project” linked to reparations and “cognitive justice”, a stance firmly rejected by the vast majority of member states.
–ChannelAfrica–
