On 4 September 2026, the United Nations adopted a non-binding resolution which endorsed the Equal Earth projection launched by a group of cartographers—Bojan Šavrič, Tom Patterson, and Bernhard Jenny—in 2018. While 164 member states voted to adopt the new map, six abstained, and the United States alone voted against it. These numbers are easy on the democratic eyes but a closer look reveals much more. The voting pattern revealed a subsistence of the "three worlds" ideology that emerged after World War II wherein states took non-alignment positions in US-Soviet Union geopolitical rivalry. Why does it (seem to) matter now since the Soviet Union no longer exists?
That is a good place to start. It is worth mentioning that although the Soviet Union no longer exists, the tensions that informed the Cold War between them are prevalent like they were in the 1940s and 1950s. At the time, although no direct combat happened between them, they clashed in the Vietnamese and Korean proxy wars. There was what was also known as Mutually Assured Destruction due to the possession of nuclear weapons by both sides (which grew into a near-reality in 1962).
America, the numerical standalone opposition to the new map, towers today as the World's number 1 country, but the tensions of yesteryears persist. In the Middle East, for instance, wars in Palestine and Iran anchored with US firepower have become more than quasi-religious warfare, the latter more than the former. Russia and China, two of Uncle Sam's existential threats line stealthily behind the states, each one also cornered by the US in their own warfare/tension with Ukraine and Taiwan, respectively. Dreadfully, an honorable mention must also be made of North Korea and its constant show-off of war readiness.
Considering the foregoing brief, it is not a surprise that the voting went the way it did. The question now, however, is this: what consequences does a re-sized map actually portend?
In the "UN New World Map: Legal Effect of the Equal Earth Resolution," Edmarverson Santos submits that "The more precise conclusion is that the General Assembly endorsed greater use of cartographic representations that preserve relative area. Implementation within particular UN bodies, departments, publications, or services remains an administrative matter governed by the relevant institutional rules. The resolution itself did not create one universally binding official UN political map." His views are largely focused on the formal and legal implications of the new map. Since the resolution for the adoption of the map is non-obligatory, it is not arguable to say that the map will automatically replace the widely used, 16th century Mercator projection.
The map, however, has its own consequences. Away from formal acceptance, the existence of an alternative map of the world allows African countries and other states that have long been visually compressed to be reified into their original sizes. In Digital Humanities, the very act of deciding sizes, colors, planes, among others, constitutes assumptions and biases. When Gerardus Mercator, born in what is now known as Belgium, designed his projection of the world, he did so with what understanding of the world he had and to the ends that served its economic and colonial needs. To have a UN-backed alternative to his work is a redemption that may not be immediately appreciated.
The observable world is a condominium of shapes, substances, distances and planes—all that is a matter that matters. If nothing else, the visual renderings of our world are a truth that matters in our survival and perception of what is possible. Say, for instance, the land area of the world is inflated such that the water body looks a lot less than it is, what danger might we be creating in the way we interact with our environment? Certainly, there will be an overblown assurance that we have an abundance of space to inhabit and have more built areas. At a time when heat waves and natural disasters have their days, our caution is as much in not inflaming global warming as it is in not falling for an illusion of abundance. The truth, relative as it may sometimes be, by its admission, without any immediate instrumentalisation, is enough reason to be whatever it is.
A map that debunks Greenland as 14 times smaller than Africa does Africa no favor, does Greenland no humiliation. It simply shows the world as it can (I would not say "as it is" because even Equal Earth has been noted to have its own weaknesses). The presently most notable consequences of the "Correct the Map" projection are in our educational instructions, research and policies are done with it. As an African child, I was taught with the Mercator projection in my Geography classes. In my readings in Digital Humanities, especially Spatial Humanities, Mercator is used as the benchmark for visualisation. The Equal Earth projection changes things for me as a Digital Humanist and, as I am sure, for the kids who are likely to learn the appearance of the world differently.
The technorati are the other set of people who immediately need to mind the resized world in Equal Earth. To thrive in some markets, especially in the Global South, it may be statutory to configure products with Equal Earth projection or make it one of the available options. If anything, the sophistication of artificial intelligence could do a lot of good here. Constructing maps involve coordinates and formulas in mathematics, an area where AI is edging humans, if news on Navier-Stokes is anything to go by. A progressive path to go would be to employ new technologies to improve available projections, including Equal Earth, to arrive at a more perfected projection of the world.
Of the six countries abstaining from the exercise, five are former Soviet States, the sixth being Serbia. Do these countries know something that the rest of the world does not know? That remains to be seen. The possibilities in this scenario are there. Are these countries, bar Serbia, non-aligned because of what has happened in the past or what may happen in the future? For one, interstellar politics are in the foreseeable future, as is World War III, which I wish never happens. To be non-aligned in whether or not Africa is bigger than Greenland, Russia than India, is a political statism more of a holdout than a permanent position (hardly is there any permanence in political standing, otherwise, US allies would have stood with them against the map). In the event that space travel becomes possible and humanity can chart courses on a new planet, would it matter how we have mapped Earth, so we map the new place (Mars, perhaps?), or would mapping not matter? And if it does, what geospatial honesty are we adopting?
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