The United Nations on \u200cFriday voted for a shift away from the 16th-century Mercator global map towards one more accurately reflecting\u00a0countries’ true size, a resolution sponsored by African states to counter perceptions that the continent is peripheral.<\/p>\n
Togo led\u00a0the initiative\u00a0to further the\u00a0African Union campaign\u00a0to \u200blimit use of the Mercator map, which distorts the relative size of land masses by expanding \u200bthose nearer the poles. It makes Greenland appear roughly the same size as Africa, \u2060though Africa is about 14 times larger.<\/p>\n
“A fair world begins with a fair map,” Togo’s Foreign Minister Robert \u200bDussey told Reuters ahead of Friday’s vote.<\/p>\n
The resolution promotes the Equal Earth projection, which more accurately portrays the \u200bsize of the continents.<\/p>\n
It is not legally binding and it “in no way challenges the use of the Mercator projection for maritime and aerial navigation, for which it remains fully suited,” the Togolese ministry said in a statement.<\/p>\n
The resolution passed in the U.N. \u200bGeneral Assembly by a vote of 164 to 1 with 6 abstentions.<\/p>\n
The United States, the only country to \u200bvote against the resolution, said it promoted an “ideological agenda” and was a distraction from the “genuine problems of international peace, prosperity \u200cor good \u2060relations”.<\/p>\n
TOGO TO CHANGE MAPS IN SCHOOLS THIS YEAR, MINISTER SAYS<\/strong><\/p>\n The Mercator map remains widely used in classrooms, but Togo hopes to change its school geography materials by the end of the year, Dussey told Reuters.<\/p>\n “Togo will be the first country to change our own geography books,” Dussey said.<\/p>\n “In the classroom, we need to change \u200bit to give an example \u200bto all the countries \u2060in the world.”<\/p>\n Togo will press other governments, schools, international organisations and technology companies to move away from the centuries-old Mercator projection, Dussey said, adding that Equal Earth \u200boffers “the best perception” of the world.<\/p>\n Togo plans to meet African Union member states and \u200bsupporters from \u2060other regions within the next six months to agree on how to promote wider adoption, Dussey said.<\/p>\n Dussey said the discussion about next steps would need to include companies operating mapping, GPS and other location-based technologies.<\/p>\n Dussey linked the campaign \u2060to adopt \u200bthe map to wider African efforts to confront colonial-era legacies, while \u200bsaying it was not an attack on Europe or any other civilisation.<\/p>\n The Mercator map’s widespread use is a consequence of colonization, he \u200bsaid.<\/p>\n “The world is changing. Africa also is changing.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The United Nations on \u200cFriday voted for a shift away from the 16th-century Mercator global map towards one more accurately reflecting\u00a0countries’ true size, a resolution sponsored by African states to counter perceptions that the continent is peripheral. Togo led\u00a0the initiative\u00a0to further the\u00a0African Union campaign\u00a0to \u200blimit use of the Mercator map, which distorts the relative size […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21960,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":6,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Reuters","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1116,2362,33],"tags":[5439,5438,1083,364],"class_list":["post-21959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-african-union","category-featured","category-politics","tag-africa-map","tag-mercator-global-map","tag-togo","tag-united-nations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21959"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21959\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21961,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21959\/revisions\/21961"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}