UN Supports Africa’s Push For More Accurate World Maps As US Stands Alone In Opposition

The UN General Assembly on Friday adopted an Africa-led resolution calling for more accurate representations of the continent on world maps, with 164 countries voting in favour, six abstaining and the United States casting the only vote against.

This story is written and edited by Global South World

Ahead of the vote, US Deputy Representative to the UN Economic and Social Council Yaryna Ferencevich criticised the proposal, calling resolutions like it “barnacles on our work here” and arguing that they were contributing to the UN’s loss of credibility.

The resolution nevertheless passed overwhelmingly. Togolese Foreign Minister Robert Dussey said longstanding cartographic distortions had helped minimise Africa’s perceived size and contributed to an unbalanced view of world geography.

The measure promotes greater use of equal-area maps, including the Equal Earth projection, which preserve the relative size of continents more accurately than the centuries-old Mercator projection.

Dussey said the initiative was not directed against any country or cartographic tradition, but aimed at encouraging projections that better reflect the true proportions of continents.

The African Union has backed the campaign through its “Correct the Map” initiative, arguing that maps can influence how countries and continents are perceived globally.

This article was originally published by Global South World and is republished here with permission. View the original article.

Global South World was created to address the emergence of influential nations outside traditional power structures in geopolitics. Our mission is to amplify voices from the Global South and raise awareness of changes and trends in those countries.