(CNN)– The UN General Assembly adopted on Friday, A new revised map of the worldAfter 164 MPs voted, there was one against, and 6 members abstained from voting.
The United States objected to the draft resolution – which was submitted by Togo – and Estonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Moldova, Serbia and Ukraine abstained from voting on it, according to the official UN website.
The General Assembly said in its statement that the revision of the map aims to restore the balance of global cartographic representation and promote a fair depiction of the world’s regions, especially Africa.
The decision recognizes that “the Mercator projection, which is widely used throughout the world, distorts – in terms of the representation of areas – continental masses located away from the equator, causing the relative size of Africa and other regions to decrease.”
In its new resolution, the General Assembly stated that “the projection of the cartographic plane of the earth provides a more accurate representation of the size of the continental land masses and that it is a suitable option for improving the accuracy of the cartographic representation of the world”.
The United Nations said in its report that “over the centuries, the most common maps show the continent of Africa to be much smaller than its actual area compared to other regions of North America and Northern Europe. Sailors were able to use them to plan their routes.”
He added: “But maintaining the trend came at the expense of space. Land masses appear larger the further you are from the equator. For example, Greenland may be similar in size to Africa, even though Africa is about 14 times larger. Likewise, the area of northern Europe and North America appears much larger than the area of the tropics.”
He continued: “Despite its original navigational purpose, the Mercator projection remains popular in educational, media, digital and official materials,” while the General Assembly resolution noted that “these distortions have contributed to the ‘symbolic minimization’ of Africa and reinforced an unbalanced view of the world.”
