UN votes to adopt new world map to reflect Africa’s true size

Why in News?

The United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution supporting the transition from the Mercator projection towards the Equal Earth projection, aimed at presenting a more proportionate representation of the size of continents, particularly Africa.

• 164 countries, including India, voted in favour.
• The United States voted against, while six countries abstained.
• The resolution is not legally binding, but could influence educational curricula, atlases and digital mapping practices.

What is the Mercator Projection?

The Mercator projection was developed by Gerardus Mercator (1512–1594) in 1569.

• It is a cylindrical map projection.
• The Earth is conceptually projected onto a cylinder surrounding the globe.
• Meridians and parallels intersect at right angles.
• It is a conformal projection, meaning it preserves local angles and shapes reasonably well.
• Its major advantage is that rhumb lines (constant-compass-bearing routes) appear as straight lines, making it extremely useful for marine navigation.

Why does Mercator distort size?

• The Mercator projection progressively stretches areas towards the poles. Consequently Greenland appears enormously larger than its actual area; Canada, Russia and Europe appear disproportionately large; Africa, which lies largely around the equator, appears relatively smaller; Tropical regions such as India are also visually reduced compared with higher-latitude regions.
• Important: The distortion is a consequence of converting the three-dimensional spherical Earth into a two-dimensional map. No flat world map can simultaneously preserve area, shape, distance and direction perfectly.

What is Equal Earth Projection?

The Equal Earth projection, developed in 2018 by an international team of cartographers, is an equal-area projection.

• It represents continents in a way that preserves their relative areas.
• Africa therefore appears much closer to its actual size relative to other continents.
• It is designed primarily for world maps and visualisation, rather than navigation.
• However, it also involves distortions of shape and other properties.

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