World News

The UN General Assembly votes 164 to 1 to move the world off the Mercator projection

By Staff Writer  |  5 September 2026

A resolution brought by African Union states and the Bahamas promotes the Equal Earth projection for general use. It is not binding, and it leaves Mercator in place for marine and air navigation. France says it will change its own practice.

The United Nations General Assembly adopted the Correct the Map resolution on Friday 4 September by 164 votes to one, with six abstentions. It was brought by African Union member states together with the Bahamas, and France was among the co-sponsors. The resolution promotes the Equal Earth projection, published in 2018, for general representation of the world, and asks governments, schools, international organisations and technology companies to move away from the Mercator projection in that role.

The United States cast the only vote against, saying the measure promoted an ideological agenda and was a distraction from the genuine problems of international peace, prosperity and good relations. Estonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Moldova, Serbia and Ukraine abstained.

A fair world begins with a fair map.

Robert Dussey, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Togo

What the projection actually does

The Mercator projection was published in the 16th century by the Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator and was built for a specific job. It preserves angles, so a straight line drawn on it is a line of constant compass bearing, which is what a navigator needs. The price of that property is area. Land masses further from the equator are expanded, and the distortion grows towards the poles. Greenland appears roughly the size of Africa on it. Africa is about 14 times larger.

Equal Earth is an equal area projection. It represents relative sizes correctly and distorts shapes instead, which matters for navigation and rarely for a classroom wall or a policy document. The resolution does not disturb that division of labour. The Togolese foreign ministry said in a statement that it in no way challenges the use of the Mercator projection for maritime and aerial navigation, for which it remains fully suited.

The resolution is not legally binding. It carries no obligation on any member state, and its effect will be measured in what ministries, publishers and platforms decide to do with it.

France moves first

Ahead of the vote, France announced that its foreign ministry would abandon the Mercator projection in favour of representations tailored to specific uses, more faithful to actual surface areas and in line with the recommendations of cartographers and scientists. Jean-Noel Barrot, the French foreign minister, set out the reasoning in a speech at a university in Paris.

The United States, Russia and China take on a disproportionate visual prominence compared to Africa, Latin America or southeast Asia.

Jean-Noel Barrot, Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs of France

Barrot added that distortions eventually take root in perceptions, and that the time had come to correct them. Togo, which led the African Union campaign, expects to change its own school geography materials by the end of the year, and says it will press other governments, schools, international organisations and technology companies to follow.

Campaigners treated the vote as the start rather than the finish. Moky Makura, executive director of the advocacy organisation Africa No Filter, said the real work now begins.

We want to see accurate maps in schools, textbooks, newsrooms, businesses and on the digital platforms billions of people use every day.

Moky Makura, Executive Director, Africa No Filter

Dussey framed the campaign as part of a wider effort to confront colonial era legacies while saying it was not an attack on Europe or any other civilisation, and put the argument for changing a 450 year old convention in seven words: the world is changing, and Africa is changing too.

Whether anything changes on a schoolroom wall now depends on textbook publishers and on the handful of companies whose mapping software most people actually look at. None of them voted on Friday.