The UN challenges five centuries of cartography

The UN voted overwhelmingly (164-1) to promote map projections that accurately represent continent sizes, moving away from the 500-year-old Mercator projection that has distorted geographic understanding by inflating the size of Europe, Russia, and North America while minimizing the Global South. The Mercator projection, designed for sea navigation in 1569, exaggerates distances and areas away from the Equator—making Greenland appear 14 times larger than it actually is—which subtly reinforces perceptions of Northern superiority. Alternative projections like Gall-Peters offer accurate relative sizes but distort country shapes, presenting a trade-off in cartographic representation.