If the African Union has its way, the world map as you know it could cease to exist.
What happened: The economic bloc consisting of 55 African nations has put its weight behind a renewed campaign to drop the Mercator world map, which shows Africa as smaller than it really is, in favour of the Equal Earth map, which shows the continent’s more accurate (and massive) size.
Catch-up: The Mercator projection, devised in 1569, has been the global standard, making it one of the few things from the 1500s we still regularly use. In representing a spherical mass on a flat surface, land masses closer to the poles (like North America) appear larger than they are, while those on the equator (like Africa) look smaller.
- Imperialism also played a role, with the Mercator map making Africa look easily conquerable; in reality, you could fit nearly three land masses the size of Europe inside Africa.
Why it matters: The Mercator map is still widely used in schools and remains the default map setting on the mobile version of Google Maps. Critics argue its popularity negatively impacts African development by making it appear small and irrelevant on a global scale.
Zoom out: These distortions have had other geopolitical ramifications. Notably, it’s been theorized that Donald Trump’s obsession with annexing Greenland stems from the fact that the Mercator map makes it look gigantic despite being slightly smaller than the Congo.—QH