Size matters: Call for new map of Africa

The African Union is joining calls to stop using the Mercator map, which makes the African continent appear smaller. As part of the "Fix the Map" campaign, member states of the African bloc are calling on governments and organisations to use more accurate maps.

The African Union has backed a campaign to stop governments and international organisations from using the 16th-century Mercator projection world map in favour of a map that more accurately depicts the size of Africa, Reuters reports.

Created by cartographer Gerardus Mercator for navigation, the projection distorts the sizes of the continents, enlarging areas near the poles, such as North America and Greenland , and shrinking Africa and South America.

"It may look like a simple map, but it is not," African Union Commission Vice Chairperson Selma Malika Haddadi told Reuters, saying the Mercator projection gave the false impression that Africa was "marginal" despite being the world's second-largest continent by area, with more than 1 billion people. The African Union has 55 member states.

Such stereotypes influence the media, education and politics, she said.

Criticism of the Mercator map is not new, but the "Fix the Map" campaign by advocacy groups Africa No Filter and Speak Up Africa has reignited the debate by calling on organisations to adopt the "Equal Earth" project for 2018, which attempts to reflect the true sizes of countries.

“The current size of the map of Africa is wrong,” said Moki Makura, executive director of the group Africa No Filter. “This is the longest-running disinformation campaign in the world and it simply must stop.”

Farah Ndiaye, co-founder of the group Speak Up Africa, said the Mercator projection had an impact on African identity and pride, especially for children who may encounter it at an early school age.

“We are actively working to promote a curriculum where the Equal Earth projection will be the core standard for all [African] classrooms,” Ndiaye said, adding that she hopes it will also be used by global institutions, including those based in Africa.

Haddadi noted that the African Union had endorsed the campaign, adding that it was in line with its goal of "restoring Africa to its rightful place on the world stage" amid growing calls for reparations for colonialism and slavery.

The African Union will advocate for wider adoption of correct maps and discuss collective action with member states, Haddadi added.

The Mercator projection is still widely used, including by schools and tech companies. In 2018, Google Maps switched from "Mercator on desktop" to a 3D globe, though users can still switch back to Mercator if they want, Reuters notes. However, the mobile app uses the Mercator projection by default.

The Fix the Map campaign is calling for organizations like the World Bank and the United Nations to adopt a single map of the Earth. A World Bank spokesman said it was already phasing out Mercator on web maps.

The campaign said it had submitted a request to the UN's geospatial body, GGIM. A UN spokesman said that once received, the request would need to be reviewed and approved by a committee of experts.

Other regions are supporting the African Union's efforts. Dorbren O'Mard, vice-chairman of the Caribbean Community (Caricom) Reparations Commission, has endorsed the Equality on Earth project as a rejection of the "ideology of power and dominance" of the Mercator map.