Africa: As the UN Adopts an Equal World Map, Meet the Three Geographers Who Disputed How the Earth Was Charted 2000 Years Ago

What the report says

A Conversation Africa analysis republished by AllAfrica examines how world maps shape perceptions of Africa’s size and status. The piece is prompted by a UN decision on 4 September 2026 to endorse the Equal Earth Projection, a newer map designed to show continents in their relative proportions more accurately than the long-used Mercator projection. The article says the Mercator map, created in the 16th century and widely used for more than 200 years, makes areas near the poles appear larger than they are, which can leave Africa looking smaller than its actual scale.

The analysis notes that the new projection was developed in 2018 by cartographers Bojan Šavrič, Tom Patterson and Bernhard Jenny. It also reports that the Togo-led campaign for the change, backed by several African countries, argued that more accurate mapping matters because distorted depictions can reinforce the idea that Africa is politically or culturally marginal.

Beyond the UN decision, the article places the debate in historical context, describing earlier disagreements among Greek and Roman writers over how to divide and measure the inhabited world. It cites Herodotus, Strabo and Pliny the Elder as examples of ancient thinkers who linked geography, scale and power in different ways. The broader point is that mapmaking has long carried political meaning, and that the representation of Africa’s size continues to affect how the continent is seen globally.