The Mercator projection badly distorts the relative size of countries and continents. It was created in 1569 for navigation, not for accurately comparing land areas. Because of the way a globe is flattened onto a rectangle, regions near the poles appear much larger than they really are. Greenland can look almost as large as Africa, even though Africa is about 14 times larger. The new Equal Earth projection preserves the relative areas of landmasses much more accurately, so Africa, South America, South Asia and other equatorial regions appear closer to their actual sizes. The campaign, led by Togo and supported by the African Union, also argues that maps influence how people perceive the importance and scale of different regions. Importantly, the UN is not literally banning the Mercator map. The resolution is nonbinding and encourages governments, schools, organizations and technology companies to use Equal Earth or other equal area projections when showing relative size. Want more...