Overview: The United Nations recently adopted a resolution led by Togo to replace the Mercator projection map with an equal-area model like the Equal Earth projection. This initiative seeks to rectify historical visual distortions that minimize Africa’s true geographic scale. While the resolution passed with overwhelming support, the United States cast the sole dissenting vote against the measure.
S.E. Williams
In May of this year, reports began to surface regarding the African country of Togo’s plans–on behalf of several African Union states including Ghana, Senegal, South Africa and others—to introduce a United Nations (U.N.) resolution aimed at changing the world map to right-size Africa; and in the process, to more accurately reflect sizes of the world’s continents.
When Togo introduced the resolution at the UN General Assembly meeting last month, it quickly brought to light the politics of cartography. According to reports, the African nations sought to “rectify a visual distortion that has minimized Africa’s importance for centuries.” African nations stressed how the current world map is reflective of the 16th century European perspective of the world. The use of this map has continued despite the European scientific revolution of the 19th-century that clearly expanded the world’s understanding of geography and the proportionate sizes of continents. It was clear, the world had no intention of correcting the 16th century map error.
Togo’s resolution stressed how a failure to change the map not only highlighted neglect of African sovereignty, it perpetuated “pseudoscientific racial theories” of the continent and its people. Togo’s resolution brought the issue to the forefront and dramatized the importance of “geopolitical justice and geographical truth”.
Many international supporters of the initiative apparently agreed that the existing 16th century map induces and perpetuates the perception of ‘smallness’ in relation to the African continent. And in the process, “reinforces international policies that simultaneously exclude and diminish the humanity of African people.”
Togo’s push highlighted this point and further stressed that the current perception of the world in relation to the map, helps shape international policy. As noted, “Decision-makers, conditioned to view Africa as smaller, tend to consider it of lesser importance.”
It’s been a lot of years since I sat in Catholic and later, public school classrooms, and gazed with minimal interest at the map of the world that hung on the walls in many of these spaces. At times, I would glance over at the map as one teacher or another lectured to the class.
I say I had minimal interest only because the map was ever present as it papered the walls of so many classrooms I sat in over the years. It registered in my awareness with as much impact as the paint that covered the walls. Unless, of course, it was part of the lesson plan that day. Unbeknownst to me, the map somehow left a mental imprint that Africa appeared smaller than many of the other continents.
It wasn’t until well into my adulthood that I read and learned how the world map that left its imprint in my educational memory was grossly inaccurate as to the size of Africa in relation to the rest of the world.
“Correcting the [world] map transforms mental geography, reshaping perceptions of importance. A perspective shift [is] a symbolic act of redress in a world marred by bureaucracy and far-right rhetoric.”
Thierry Valle
At some point during those years, my classmates and I were taught a bit about maps—none of which I retained so I had to look it up for this editorial. A cartographer originally designed the world map—still used internationally today—for the benefit of European sailors during the 16th century.
The world map—called the Mercator projection—is named for its creator Gerardus Mercator. Its design enabled sailors to plot straight lines across the oceans. The lines enhanced European sailors’ ability to navigate the world.
This map provided benefit would ultimately enable European nations to capture and sell human beings like commodities, rape the African continent and other places populated with people of darker hues of its resources that ranged from diamonds to oil and everything in between. The Europeans, however, did not stop there.
They also took the art, ancient jewelry, physical structures like obelisks from Egypt, up to and including the bodies of our ancestors and placed them on display—nothing was/is sacred to them. And then, as if this wasn’t enough—Europeans ultimately colonized lands and controlled the populations of a large swath of the world including the majority of the African continent.
I learned the Mercator projection created the plot lines depicted on the map and used for navigation by stretching out the poles in order to flatten the world into a two-dimensional image on paper. But, in doing so, it presented a false perception of the world’s land masses. The most significant distortion was in relation to the minimizing of the second largest continent in the world—Africa. . . Asia is the largest continent.
In other words, from the time the map was initiated in the 16th century, the expansive land mass of Africa has been diminished in the map’s presentation; and for centuries since, this misperception has continued to be presented as fact to children in classrooms around the world.
In reality, Africa is a land of more than one billion people, yet the world map shows it as nearly equal in size to Greenland, which by comparison, has less than 60 thousand citizens. Projections reveal that Africa is actually fourteen times larger than Trump’s beloved Greenland. In addition, North America on the Mercator projection map appears disproportionately large, while the size of South America on the other hand, is also minimized. (See map above.)
I can only imagine that the 16th century cartographer never perceived how his map, beyond being useful to those traversing the oceans as explorers long ago, would also become a useful tool in the not so subtle mindset of white supremacy. I say this because intended or not, the map visually minimizes the presence and importance of Africa in the eyes of the world and despite knowledge that’s been available since the 19th century that informed a correction to the map, internationally, the issue was ignored.
As one expert has noted, “At the heart of the issue is not geography alone, but identity and political influence.”
In September, Togo presented its resolution to revise the map to the U.N. Its goal, ”to repair the visual distortion that has limited and distorted Africa’s importance for centuries.” Many countries in the world now appear to be in agreement that the Mercator map tends to present the African continent with a kind of ‘smallness’.
African leaders and many in the diaspora including me, believe that this false projection of smallness, as reported, “only serves to reinforce exclusionary policies that serve to diminish the humanity of [African] people.”
Late last week, U.N. member states voted to adopt the Correct the Map resolution presented by Togo. The resolution “encourages governments, educational institutions and digital platforms [around the world] to move away from the traditional Mercator map and adopt maps like the Equal Earth model that presents a world map with equal-area projections.” It is believed this will help repair the “visual distortion” that has plagued the continent of Africa for centuries.
When the U.N. approved the Togo Resolution on September 4, it did so with 164 votes in favour to only one vote against it. I was not surprised though disappointed to learn that the racist leaders of the United States of America cast the only vote against it.
I was not surprised by this vote. After all, the U.S. had eagerly joined Israel and Argentina in a no vote against the landmark U.N. resolution on the slave trade last March. Despite their resistance the resolution passed ith a large majority. It called for restitution for cultural property looted from countries of origin, formal apologies for the slave trade, and the controversial consideration of reparations.
At last, as one observer noted, regarding the Togo Resolution, science is taking precedence over historical inaccuracies and distortion. From my perspective and the perspective of others, Africa is rising, demanding justice, respect, reciprocity, and its rightful place on the world stage.
When Africa rises, so will the world.
Of course, this is just my opinion. I’m keeping it real.