164 Yes, 1 No: The UN Vote That Was Never About Maps
(SeaPRwire) – By: Gavin Thorne
The United Nations just put a vote on whether Africa should look like Africa. One hundred sixty-four countries said yes. One said no. The vote was never really about cartography. It was about who gets to decide how the world sees itself. It was also about which power blocs still have the confidence to insist on their own visual grammar. When a map enters the UN General Assembly as a resolution, the stakes have moved beyond geography. They have moved into something far more structural. The question was never whether Africa is big enough. The question was who gets to draw the line.
The resolution was sponsored by Togo and backed by the African Union. One hundred sixty-four member states voted in favor. Only the United States voted against it. Six others abstained. Serbia, Estonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Moldova, and Ukraine held their positions. The resolution does not ban the Mercator projection. It encourages the use of the Equal Earth projection instead. The Equal Earth projection was developed in 2018. It shows continents in their true proportions. On the Mercator, Greenland and Africa appear roughly the same size. On the Equal Earth, Africa is fourteen times larger than Greenland.
The Mercator map was designed by Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator to help European navigators at sea. It has been in common use since the sixteenth century. Advocates say it distorts landmasses. It enlarges regions near the poles. North America and Greenland get inflated. Africa and South America get shrunk. Geographers note the traditional map is only useful for navigation. Mark Monmonier, a Syracuse University geography professor, put it bluntly. Outside of that very narrow navigation application, there is no point in using it. The Equal Earth projection follows the Earth’s curvature. It presents accurate relative sizes.
The push behind this resolution was not spontaneous. It was a recent campaign led by African countries and advocacy groups. Africa No Filter was one of the lead campaigners. Their goal was to see accurate maps in schools, textbooks, newsrooms, businesses, and digital platforms. Togo’s Foreign Minister Robert Dussey framed the stakes before the vote. Maps shape our understanding of the world, he said. They guide education. They nourish the imagination. They influence collective perceptions. The language was deliberate. This was framed as an epistemological correction, not a geographical one.
The U.S. vote against triggered the real signal. France embraced it immediately. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot posted on X after the vote. Changing the map does not change the world, he said. But correcting a distorted representation is already an act of truth. That was a diplomatic move with teeth. The six abstentions came from Serbia, Estonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Moldova, and Ukraine. They suggest a familiar bloc posture. None of those countries faced the same colonial erasure. Their abstentions read as alignment with a Western visual canon. Not as genuine geographic disagreement.
The resolution has no enforcement mechanism. No deadline. No penalty for inaction. The pendulum has moved, but the weight of inertia is enormous. Whether the map on your wall changes depends on one thing. Whether someone with editorial authority decides accuracy matters more than the comfort of what they already know. Africa No Filter wanted accurate maps in schools, textbooks, and digital platforms. The vote passed. But voting and rendering are two different acts. The next move belongs to the institutions that draw the maps.
Author bio: Gavin Thorne, an investigative journalist based in Washington, D.C., specializing in special interests, legislative affairs, international governance structures, and the institutional power dynamics that shape diplomatic outcomes.