.svg)
News Desk
NEW YORK: The United Nations General Assembly has backed a resolution encouraging the use of world maps that show the relative size of continents more accurately, highlighting the Equal Earth projection.
The resolution was supported by 164 countries, while the United States voted against and six countries abstained. The move focuses attention on the familiar Mercator projection, which makes areas closer to the poles appear much larger than they actually are.
One striking example is Greenland. On a Mercator map, it can appear similar in size to Africa. In reality, Africa is about 14 times larger. The Equal Earth projection, developed in 2018, is designed to preserve the relative size of land areas more accurately.
The initiative was led by Togo with support from the African Union. It does not ban the Mercator projection, which remains useful for navigation. Instead, the resolution encourages governments, schools and organisations to consider more accurate equal-area projections where the size of landmasses matters.
