African Union Demands World Map Redrawn to Show True Size of Africa
The African Union (AU) has launched a campaign calling for the replacement of the centuries-old Mercator projection map, arguing it distorts the true size of Africa and fuels misconceptions about the continent’s global significance.
The 55-member bloc says the Mercator map, created in 1569 for navigation, artificially enlarges regions near the poles like Europe, North America and Greenland, while making Africa and South America appear smaller than they really are. In reality, Africa is 14 times the size of Greenland, though the two often appear similar in scale on Mercator maps.
«This is not just a map issue,» AU Commission deputy chairperson Selma Malika Haddadi told Reuters. «It has influenced education, media, and policy, creating a false impression that Africa is marginal, despite being the world’s second-largest continent with over a billion people.»
The AU is backing the «Correct the Map» campaign, which advocates for the use of the Equal Earth projection — a 2018 design that more accurately represents landmass proportions. Campaigners argue that showing Africa at its true scale is vital to correcting long-standing geopolitical and cultural stereotypes.
Advocacy groups such as Africa No Filter and Speak Up Africa say they aim to introduce Equal Earth into schools and push for its adoption by major institutions including the UN and the World Bank.
«It’s the world’s longest-running misinformation campaign,» said Moky Makura of Africa No Filter.
Critics acknowledge that all map projections involve some distortion when translating a globe onto a flat surface. However, supporters of Equal Earth argue that shifting away from Mercator is an important step toward reshaping how Africa is perceived globally.
The AU says it will press the UN and international organizations to formally adopt the alternative map as part of its wider goal of «reclaiming Africa’s rightful place on the global stage.»
Kursiv Uzbekistan also reports that Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Sunday that tensions with the United States were «unsolvable».
