EditAfrica’s true size – sorry for Europe!
The UN just voted to correct the map. Demography already tells a larger story
On Friday the UN General Assembly adopted an African-led resolution urging schools, governments and tech companies to use equal-area projections such as Equal Earth instead of the familiar Mercator map. The vote was 164 in favour, one against and six abstentions.
The United States cast the only “no” vote because it treated the resolution as political theatre rather than a technical cartographic update. In its official explanation of vote, Washington said the text could not be separated from a “radical ideological project” that invoked “cognitive justice” and “memorial reparation,” and that the General Assembly was wasting time on 16th-century map projections instead of peace, prosperity and good relations. The US representative called such resolutions “barnacles” that erode the UN’s credibility. That objection sits alongside a simple geographic fact: the Mercator projection does enlarge landmasses farther from the equator, so Russia, Canada, Greenland and the continental United States appear bigger relative to equatorial continents than they actually are. Equal-area maps shrink those northern countries back toward their true surface area, which is precisely the visual shift the resolution encourages.
On Friday, the United Nations General Assembly adopted an African proposal for a new world map, which shows countries’ true size relative to one another.
In favor: 164
Against: 1
Abstentions: 6 pic.twitter.com/5BE4LUiojH— UN News (@UN_News_Centre) September 4, 2026
The point was simple: Mercator shrinks Africa and inflates land near the poles, so Greenland looks comparable to a continent that is actually about 14 times larger. A fairer map, Togo’s foreign minister said, “does not change the geography of the world, it changes how we see the world.”
The UN General Assembly will vote on Friday on an African initiative (draft resolution) to replace the 16th-century Mercator map projection with the geographically accurate Equal Earth map, following an African Union resolution addressing historical size distortions that shrink… pic.twitter.com/QqFy0LSdw1
— Sherwin Bryce-Pease (@sherwiebp) September 3, 2026
That visual correction is overdue. The demographic correction is already happening, and it is larger.
Africa’s mid-2026 population is about 1.585 billion, or 19 percent of humanity. The continent is adding roughly 35 million people a year – more than the entire population of Ghana – while growing at 2.2 percent, three times the global rate. Its median age is 19.5. Fertility remains the world’s highest at 3.9 births per woman, though it has already fallen from 6.7 in the early 1970s and is projected to keep declining.
Under the UN’s medium variant, Africa reaches 2.47 billion by 2050 (about a quarter of the world) and 3.81 billion by 2100 (approaching two-fifths). By then nearly half of everyone under 25 is expected to live there. Nigeria alone, already 242 million, is on course to become one of the planet’s most populous countries. Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for most of the increase; North Africa grows more slowly.
Europe’s true geographic size is modest: roughly 10.2 million square kilometres, or about 7 percent of the world’s land. That makes it one-third the area of Africa and less than a quarter the area of Asia. Mercator maps inflate it because so much of the continent sits far from the equator; equal-area projections shrink it back toward its actual footprint. Demographically the contrast is sharper still. Europe’s 2026 population is about 743 million – 9 percent of humanity and already falling at 0.12 percent a year. Its median age is 43, fertility is 1.4 children per woman, and UN medium projections show the total slipping toward 700 million by 2050. While Africa adds tens of millions of young people each year, Europe is the only continent whose population has already peaked and is ageing in place.
The map change is symbolic and non-binding. The population numbers are not. They will reshape labour markets, cities, food demand, migration pressures and political weight whether or not classrooms swap projections. Equal-area maps make Africa look as large as it is. The census already shows it is becoming as central as it looks.
Caption: A comparison between the familiar Mercator map and the Equal Earth depiction of continents. [@sherwiebp on X]
Updated: September 5, 2026 - 12:48
