The UN General Assembly adopted on 2026-09-04 a resolution presented by Togo and supported by the African Union to abandon the use of the Mercator map projection in favor of a more accurate representation of continent sizes.

The resolution encourages UN member states, international organizations, and other relevant entities to adopt the Equal Earth projection, which shows countries and continents with their proportional sizes. The UN General Assembly is scheduled to vote on a resolution initiated by Togo that requests the abandonment of the traditional Mercator map projection in favor of one that accurately reflects the size of countries. The UN resolution aims to limit the use of 16th-century Mercator maps, which distort continent sizes; for instance, Greenland appears nearly equal to Africa although Africa is 14 times larger.

The United States, the only country that voted against the resolution, argued that it promotes an 'ideological agenda' and is a 'distraction' from real problems of international peace, prosperity, or good relations. Togo's Foreign Minister Robert Dussey said Togo will be the first country to change its geography books and will push other governments, schools, international organizations, and technology companies to promote the changes. The resolution text states that cartographic distortions in the size of continents, inherited from history, have contributed to erroneous perceptions, particularly a symbolic minimization of Africa in the collective imagination.