In 1569, Flemish mapmaker Gerardus Mercator synthesized existing ideas in navigation and cartography to create a new type of world map. It has stood the test of time: Billions of people would ...

The African Union has endorsed the #CorrectTheMap Campaign, a call for the United Nations and the wider global community to use a different kind of world map. The campaign currently has over 4,500 ...

New Delhi: Member states of the African Union, on 15 August, signed a petition for the world to ‘reject’ the Mercator map projection and accept a more equitable projection that “more accurately ...

The African Union endorsed a map that reflects the truer relative size of the continent. (map public domain via Equal Earth) The African Union, an intergovernmental organization of 55 African ...

Tom has a Master's degree in Journalism. His editorial work covers anything from archaeology and the environment to technology and culture. Tom has a Master's degree in Journalism. His editorial work ...

African advocacy groups launched a campaign to replace the Mercator map with the Equal Earth projection. The African Union endorsed the effort, saying the distorted map minimizes Africa’s global ...

The Mercator world map, long a fixture in classrooms globally, makes the European Union appear almost as large as Africa. In reality, Africa is more than seven times bigger. It is a distortion that ...

Press Play with Madeleine Brand Why Africa – and some cartographers – want to overhaul the world map The colonial-era Mercator map distorts continental size, making Africa look smaller than it is. The ...

Maps distort reality because the Earth is a three-dimensional sphere, and any attempt to represent it on a flat surface requires compromise. It's like trying to make a rectangle out of an orange peel.

The African Union has joined a campaign calling for the widely-used Mercator map, which makes Africa appear smaller than it is, to be replaced with a map that more accurately reflects the continent's ...