UN approves new map showing Africa’s true size, US opposes

The United Nations General Assembly has voted to promote governments, schools, and tech companies worldwide to halt utilizing maps that marque Africa look smaller than it is.

Adopted on Friday, the solution is the culmination of an African-led run against the 16th-century Mercator projection, the astir wide utilized representation successful the world.

Only the United States voted against the determination supported by 164 subordinate states. Six countries – Estonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Moldova, Serbia, and Ukraine – abstained.

Togo led negotiations, gathering connected an African Union-backed campaign. Foreign Minister Robert Dussey said a just representation does not alteration the world’s geography, “it changes however we spot the world”.

The solution says correcting distortions is an enactment of “cognitive justness and memorial reparation” and references Equal Earth, developed successful 2018, arsenic a projection that much accurately represents comparative size.

The solution does not prohibition the Mercator projection, but urges the usage of the Equal Earth projection and different equal-area maps to thatch the limitations of immoderate level representation successful representing a spherical planet.

The U.S. said the resolution “mocks the enactment and pu...