The Pan Afrikanist

As the world backs “Equal Earth”, Africa demands to be seen in true size

By Fortune Madondo

A Distortion Taught in Classrooms

For generations, classrooms were teaching distortion. It is not the geography teacher’s fault. It is a civilisational lie. A civilisational lie embedded into every classroom, every textbook, every government building, every media broadcast, and every policy document that has used a world map for the past four and a half centuries. Look at the world map hanging on the wall. That’s not to-scale Africa. That’s a shrunken Africa. For 457 years, to be exact, the world has learned geography through a Mercator projection.

The Distortion in Numbers

Greenland looks the same size as Africa. It is not. Africa is 30.3 million sq km. Greenland is 2.1 million sq km. The DRC, a central African country alone, is 2.3 million sq km. Bigger than Greenland. You could fit the US, China, India, Japan, and all of Europe inside Africa.

The Mercator Map

In 1569, a Flemish cartographer named Gerardus Mercator created a map projection designed for one specific purpose: to help European sailors navigate across oceans by allowing them to draw a straight line between two points without adjusting their compasses. That projection shows Greenland as nearly the same size as Africa, when in reality Africa is about fourteen times larger. The Mercator map works for navigation. It distorts relative size. It enlarges Europe. It reduces the tropics. It minimises Africa’s scale.

Why 1569 Matters?

Mercator did not just distort lines. The projection had political effects. At the height of colonialism, the map’s distortion aligned with the era’s power dynamics: Europe, enlarged and centred. Africa, reduced and pushed to the edge. Generations grew up with that image. That visual effect mattered. It’s easier to undervalue a place that appears small on the wall.

A Distorted Map

The projection was the first distortion. Many subsequent policies were made using that image. Maps are not neutral. They shape imagination, perceptions, and worldview. Mercator served navigation well. In classrooms, it created a skewed sense of scale. It created a geography of smallness which served imperial interests.

A Shrinking Map

Whether by design or coincidence, the map that shrank Africa was the original crime. Everything else was committed inside it. That is not a minor technical miscalculation. Far from being innocent or objective sketches of geography, maps have always been political instruments, shaping how people see the world and their place in it. The Mercator projection did its political work with extraordinary efficiency. It bloated Europe while crushing Africa into irrelevance.

Distorted Map and Berlin Conference 1884–85

Three hundred years later, European powers met in Berlin. Europe had already drawn Africa in reduced form on paper. The Berlin Conference of 1884 to 1885, when major European powers met to carve up Africa, is the most striking example of maps being used to expand and satisfy imperial ambition. They had already shrunken Africa on paper. Berlin was simply the meeting where they agreed on which European hand would hold which shrunken piece.

The Vote

On September 5, 2026, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) voted. 164 voted in favour. 1 country, the United States of America (US), voted against. Six countries — Ukraine, Georgia, Lithuania, Moldova, Serbia, and Estonia — abstained. The UN adopted:

“Correct the map: rebalancing global cartographic representation and promoting equitable representation of the world’s regions, particularly Africa”.

The resolution recommends:

“When showing size, use an equal-area map like Equal Earth”.

Equal Earth preserves relative areas, even if shapes adjust. The initiative was led by Togo. Backed by the African Union (AU). The AU endorsed Equal Earth in August 2025. The Equal Earth projection was published in 2018.

More Than A Technical Debate

This is not only about cartography. It is also about representation.

“Maps shape our understanding of the world. They guide education, nourish the imagination, and influence collective perceptions.”

said Togo’s Foreign Minister Robert Dussey.

Adding that,

“This is not a political discussion but a scientific one. There is scientific proof, so we must accept reality”.

Advocates describe this as “symbolic minimisation”. When 1.4 billion people appear smaller on paper, their global weight can be underestimated too. Their opinions in boardrooms and global meetings can be trivialised. The media frames this as a map story. Supporters of the Equal Earth map projection argue it is broader. It is a global acknowledgement that the most widely used classroom map for centuries has distorted scale, and that many policies and perceptions were built on that image.

The UN General Assembly voted to adopt a new world map, known as the Equal Earth projection, that makes the African continent significantly bigger while shrinking North America and Europe. That vote is not about the aesthetics of a diagram. It is the formal global acknowledgement of something Africa has known for five hundred years: the most widely used map in human history was a distortion, and the people who built it built everything else they did to Africa inside it.

Cartographic Injustice

The Mercator projection distorted Africa’s identity and reshaped how the world perceived the Global South. A continent large enough to contain the United States, China, India, Japan, and most of Europe within its actual borders was made to look marginal, peripheral, and small in the geographic imagination of every generation that grew up with that map on their classroom wall. That visual marginalisation was not accidental. It was the cartographic foundation on which every subsequent form of colonial extraction was built. You do not feel guilty stealing from somewhere that barely appears on the map.

In Harare, a Grade 7 textbook still shows Africa smaller than Russia, or almost the same size as Greenland. Factually wrong. And in Dakar, a student asked:

“If we are so big, why do maps make us small?”

Hours before the vote, France announced it would move away from Mercator for general use. Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot:

“Distortions eventually take root in perceptions”.

The Pushback

The US called the resolution part of a “radical ideological project”, and pointed out that it was “the reason this institution (UN) is losing its credibility”.

The AU Chairperson replied:

“Africa must be represented as it truly is — in its true dimensions and in its rightful place in the world”.

The Case For The Mercator Map

No one disputes the fact that the Mercator map is best for navigation. Planes still use it. That is correct. But classrooms are not cockpits. The resolution does not ban Mercator. It recommends the right tool for the task.

For navigation: Mercator.

For teaching scale: Equal Earth.

Use a map that shows true size when teaching children their world.

What Happens Now?

Google Maps still defaults to Mercator as of 2026. Textbooks will change first. Boston Public Schools moved away from Mercator in 2017. National Geographic adopted Equal Earth in 2018. From 2026, AU member states plan to phase Equal Earth into schools. The UN, AU, and Wikipedia are expected to follow by 2027. For 457 years, the default map shaped our sense of scale. But on September 5, UNGA overwhelmingly voted for a correction. The process has started.

Mercator distorted Africa’s scale. Berlin divided Africa’s territory. The Equal Earth map projection aims to restore accurate scale. The map was one distortion. Within it, land was taken. Wealth was extracted. Narratives were shaped. Correct the map. Correct the history. Correct the economics. Correct the narrative.

Conclusion

The Mercator map shrank Africa. The Berlin Conference divided Africa. The Equal Earth projection restores Africa. The map was always the smallest of the thefts. What was stolen inside the map — the land, the wealth, and the narrative — are the greatest thefts. Start by changing the map in one classroom. Then watch how understanding changes. About what was taken. And what is still being taken. And what can only be addressed when we see clearly.

AUTHOR BIO

Fortune Madondo is a Zimbabwean Pan-Africanist, decolonial thinker and youth organiser. His work is unapologetic: pro-African sovereignty, anti-neocolonialism, pro-justice. He writes to challenge hegemony and champion African self-determination.