The UN General Assembly approved a resolution for the world to gradually abandon the traditional Mercator map in favor of a more accurate representation of the actual size of continents, including Africa and Brazil. The vote took place this Friday.
The Mercator map was created by Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator in 1569 to help sailors with their navigations. However, the projection is Eurocentric and distorts areas near the poles, enlarging them, while shrinking equatorial regions.
As a result, Europe and North America appear much larger than they actually are, while Africa and South America appear smaller. One example cited is that Greenland appears to be the same size as Africa and South America, when in reality the African continent is 14 times larger than the Arctic island.
Brazil, alone, is four times larger than Greenland. The new resolution seeks to adopt maps that more accurately represent the real dimensions of territories around the world.
