The United Nations General Assembly voted Friday to endorse a new world map, the Equal Earth projection, meant to replace the 16th-century Mercator map long used in classrooms, boardrooms and atlases worldwide.
The resolution, sponsored by Togo and backed by African Union members, passed 164 votes to one. The United States was the sole vote against it. Six countries — Serbia, Estonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Moldova and Ukraine — abstained.
The measure is nonbinding. The UN said it does not ban the Mercator projection or impose a replacement; it merely 'encourages' governments and institutions to adopt Equal Earth instead.
The underlying dispute is about scale. On the Mercator map, designed by Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator in 1569 to aid maritime navigation, Africa appears roughly the same size as Greenland. In reality, Africa spans about 30.3 million square kilometers — large enough to contain the United States, China, India and most of Europe — and is about 14 times larger than Greenland. Geographers note the Mercator projection inflates northern landmasses like North America and Europe while compressing Africa and South America.
Togo's Foreign Minister Robert Dussey told the Assembly that 'maps shape our understanding of the world' and 'reaffirm African reality.' France, a co-sponsor, announced it would abandon the Mercator projection outright. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said on X that 'correcting a distorted representation is already an act of truth.'
The US delegate, Yaryna Ferencevych, offered the lone dissent before the vote, calling the resolution 'the reason this institution is losing its credibility.' She argued that 'instead of focusing on genuine problems ... this body is debating map projects from the 16th century.'
The numbers come first: 164 countries spent floor time and diplomatic capital on a cartographic symbol with no binding force. Six more allies of the West sat it out rather than back it outright. Only Washington said no on the record.
That single vote says less about geography than about priorities. The UN General Assembly, a body funded in large part by member-state contributions, chose to devote a formal resolution to which map projection schools and newsrooms should prefer — a matter of aesthetics and symbolism, not security, trade or development. The American objection, as Ferencevych framed it, was not a defense of the Mercator projection's accuracy but a rejection of the institution's drift toward cultural signaling over 'genuine problems.'
For an organization that struggles to enforce its own binding resolutions on conflict and sanctions, a unanimous-minus-one vote on Gerardus Mercator's 1569 chart is a tell. Power leaves a paper trail, and this one shows an institution more comfortable rewriting classroom posters than resolving the disputes actually on its agenda.
