Africa’s landmass is far larger than its appearance on the traditional world map suggests, with a new United Nations-backed push seeking to correct decades of geographical distortion.

The UN General Assembly on Friday approved a resolution encouraging countries, schools, media organisations and other institutions to adopt the Equal Earth map projection when accurate comparisons of land size are important.

The resolution, introduced by Togo on behalf of the African Group and supported by the African Union, received 164 votes in favour. The United States was the only country to vote against it, while six countries: Serbia, Estonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Moldova and Ukraine, abstained.

The move does not ban the widely used Mercator projection. Instead, it encourages the use of maps that give a more accurate picture of the relative sizes of continents.

The Mercator projection, developed by Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator in 1569, was designed mainly for navigation. While it preserves directions and shapes effectively, it significantly distorts the size of land areas, particularly as locations move towards the poles.

This is why Greenland can appear comparable in size to Africa on some traditional maps, despite Africa being about 14 times larger.

The Equal Earth projection, developed in 2018 by cartographers Bojan Šavrič, Tom Patterson and Bernhard Jenny, was created to address this problem. Unlike Mercator, it is an equal-area projection, meaning the relative sizes of continents are represented much more accurately.

How large is Africa?

Africa covers about 30.3 million square kilometres, making it the second-largest continent after Asia.

Its size is significantly greater than that of the other continents:

• North America: about 24.7 million square kilometres
• South America: about 17.8 million square kilometres
• Antarctica: about 14 million square kilometres
• Europe: about 10.2–10.5 million square kilometres
• Australia/Oceania: about 8.5–8.6 million square kilometres

This means Africa is larger than five of the other six traditionally recognised continents.

Africa is roughly three times the size of Europe, more than twice the size of Antarctica and almost twice the size of South America. It is also substantially larger than North America.

The continent’s scale becomes even clearer when comparing individual countries and regions. The contiguous United States, China, India and several European countries can collectively fit within Africa’s landmass, with considerable space remaining.

Greenland, which often looks disproportionately large on Mercator maps, covers only a fraction of Africa’s area.

Push for change

Supporters of the UN resolution argue that the way the world is visually represented can influence how people understand the importance and scale of different regions.

Togo has indicated that it will update school geography materials to reflect the more accurate representation, while France has also pledged to move away from the Mercator projection.

However, the UN resolution is not legally binding. Its impact will therefore depend on whether governments, educational institutions, publishers, media organisations and digital platforms voluntarily adopt the Equal Earth projection or other equal-area maps.

The United States opposed the resolution, describing it as driven by an ideological agenda and arguing that the UN should focus on more pressing global challenges.

For Africa, proponents say the change is more than a cartographic adjustment. They see it as an opportunity to correct a long-standing visual misconception about the continent’s enormous geographical scale.