France drops Mercator maps as Africa pushes for truer world view

France Bids Farewell to Mercator Projection Amid Pan-African Push for Accurate Global Mapping

The announcement comes as the United Nations General Assembly votes on Friday on a resolution calling for the world to move away from Mercator maps in favor of projections that more accurately reflect the true sizes of countries.

France is co-sponsoring the resolution, which was brought by Togo and the African Union.

The text does not seek to ban the Mercator projection outright. It asks governments, schools, international organisations and technology companies to adopt the Equal Earth projection and other equal-area maps where the true scale of continents matters.

Changing perceptions

The French Foreign Ministry will abandon the Mercator projection in favour of map representations tailored to specific uses, more faithful to actual surface areas and in line with the recommendations of cartographers and scientists, Barrot said in a speech at the Sorbonne University in Paris.

He said the decision was part of a wider debate about how maps and other representations shape perceptions of international power.

The Mercator projection, named after a 16th-century Flemish cartographer, is used around the world. Designed for maritime navigation, it increases distortion the further a region lies from the equator.

Since Africa and South America both straddle the equator, they appear smaller than their actual size, while Russia, North America and Greenland appear much larger.

“The United States, Russia and China take on a disproportionate visual importance compared with Africa, Latin America or South-East Asia,” Barrot said.

“Greenland appears almost as large as Africa, whereas Africa is actually about 14 times larger.”

Such representations can have a lasting effect on how people perceive the world, he argued.

“Distortions eventually take root in perceptions. The time has come to correct them,” Barrot said. “Changing the map obviously does not change the world. But correcting a distorting representation is already an act of truth.”

Barrot said the move was in line with France’s push against over-simplified views of the world that pit a so-called “global south” against “the West” and portray Europe as being in decline.

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