The United Nations General Assembly voted on Friday to adopt a new world map that reflects countries’ true relative sizes, after African nations urged the UN to right a centuries-old wrong.

The General Assembly backs a Togo-led push that encourages the use of maps that more accurately represent the size of continents

It inflated northern regions and compressed equatorial ones, making Europe and North America appear much larger, while shrinking Africa and South America. A group of cartographers launched the Equal Earth projection in 2018. It makes Africa, Latin America, South Asia and Oceania appear much larger.

India voted in favour of a UN resolution to adopt a new world map correcting Africa’s size distortion, supporting equitable cartographic standards.

The African Union endorsed a map that reflects the truer relative size of the continent. (map public domain via Equal Earth) The African Union, an intergovernmental organization of 55 African countries, endorsed a version of the world map that more ...