The true true size of Africa

The true true size of Africa
Nov 10th 2010, 17:52 by G.D.
(The Economist) LAST month Kai Krause, a computer-graphics guru, caused a stir with a map entitled “The True Size of Africa”, which showed the outlines of other countries crammed into the outline of the African continent. His aim was to make “a small contribution in the fight against rampant Immappancy”—in particular, the fact that most people do not realise how much the ubiquitous Mercator projection distorts the relative sizes of countries.
A sphere cannot be represented on a flat plane without distortion, which means all map projections distort in one way or another. Some projections show areas accurately but distort distances or scales, for example; others preserve the shapes of countries but misrepresent their areas. You can read all the gory details on Wikipedia.
Gerardus Mercator’s projection, published in 1569, was immediately useful because it depicts a line of constant bearing as a straight line, which is handy for marine navigation. The drawback is that it distorts the shapes and areas of large land masses, and the distortion gets progressively worse as you get closer to the poles. (Africa looks about the same size as Greenland under the Mercator projection, for example, even though it is in fact 14 times bigger.) This was not a big problem for 16th-century sailors, of course, and the Mercator projection remains popular to this day.
In Mr Krause’s map (above) he seems to have used the shapes of the countries from a Mercator projection, but has scaled up the outline of Africa, without changing its shape, to show the appropriate area. An alternative and arguably more rigorous approach would be to repeat the exercise using an “equal area” projection that shows the countries’ areas correctly while minimising shape distortion. These two properties are the hardest to balance when showing the whole world on one map. I decided to rework Mr Krause’s map using Gall’s Stereographic Cylindrical Projection (1855) with two standard parallels at 45°N and 45°S. Distortions are still evident at the poles, but for most countries shape is maintained, and their areas are shown correctly. As you can see (below), the results are distinct from Mr Krause’s map. But however you look at it, his point is a good one: Africa is much bigger than it looks on most maps.

Equal Earth projection
The Equal Earth map projection is a new equal-area pseudocylindrical projection for world maps jointly developed by Bojan Šavrič (Esri), Tom Patterson (US National Park Service), and Bernhard Jenny (Monash University). It was created to provide a visually pleasing alternative to the Gall-Peters projection, which some schools and socially concerned groups have adopted out of concern for fairness. Their priority is to show developing countries in the tropics and developed countries in the north with correctly proportioned sizes.

4-6 September
UN tells the world: Stop making Africa look small
The UN General Assembly has voted overwhelmingly to encourage governments, schools and tech companies worldwide to stop using maps that make Africa look far smaller than it really is.
(un.org) By 164 votes to one, Member States on Friday endorsed a resolution promoting map projections that more accurately reflect the true size of continents – the culmination of an African-led campaign against the 16th-century Mercator projection, still the most widely used map in the world.
The United States cast the sole vote against, dismissing the initiative as part of a “radical ideological project.”
Six countries – Estonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Moldova, Serbia and Ukraine – abstained.
The resolution does not ban the Mercator projection or impose a replacement. Instead, it encourages governments, schools, international organizations and technology companies to use the Equal Earth projection and other so-called equal-area maps when relative size matters, and to teach the limitations of any flat map in representing a spherical planet.
Behind that seemingly technical debate lies a larger argument about history and power: whether a map designed for European sailors in the 16th century has, over generations, distorted not only geography but perceptions of a whole, vast and complex continent.
“Maps shape our understanding of the world,” Robert Dussey, Togo’s foreign minister, said before the vote. “They guide education, nourish the imagination, and influence collective perceptions.”
UN votes to adopt new world map that shows Africa’s true scale
Togo-sponsored resolution called to phase out traditional map that depicts continent as similar size to Greenland
(The Guardian) The United Nations has voted to adopt a resolution for the world to formally phase out the traditional Mercator map of the globe in favour of one that more accurately displays Africa’s size.
In a session at its headquarters in New York, the UN general assembly officially retired the 16th-century Mercator projection in favour of one based on the more accurate 2018 Equal Earth design.
At the session, 164 countries voted in favour of the resolution. Only the US voted no, with its representative saying the resolution was “superfluous”. There were six abstentions.
UN resolutions are non-enforceable, so countries and institutions will not be mandated to use only the new projection or forbidden from using the old one. However, the outcome is expected to result in an update of classroom curriculums and everyday technology given the wide usage of the Mercator projection in education, technology and governance.
What different world maps get right – and what they get wrong
The Mercator projection is the map widely used across the globe but inaccurately depicts the sizes of countries and continents
(BBC) The UN has just called for the predominant world map to be replaced with one that more accurately reflects the true size of continents such as Africa.
The “Correct the Map” resolution adopted by the General Assembly aims to fix the discrepancy with the Mercator map, in which the African continent is shown as being of similar size to Greenland – even though it is in reality about 14 times larger.
The UN adopted a new map, the Equal Earth projection, which better represents the true sizes of landmasses – but comes with problems of its own.
There have been many prominent attempts over the years to solve the problem of accurately representing the surface of a sphere on a flat rectangle, each with its own benefits and drawbacks.
His map accommodates for the curvature of the Earth by making countries near the equator seem much smaller than they are and countries nearer the poles appear stretched.
The distortion is a result of it being impossible to accurately represent the surface of a globe on a two-dimensional chart.
More than 450 years on, Mercator’s creation is still the basis for many of the maps we see in classrooms, on TV and online, including Google Maps.
But critics of the Mercator map say there is a psychological effect to viewing some places as smaller than they actually are and others as larger, as we instinctively view bigger things as more important.
For Kenyan geographer Kioko Muendo, this has implicitly downplayed Africa’s vast resources, population and investment opportunities.
“Maps are more than just guides for travellers – they shape how regions are perceived politically and economically,” he told the BBC.

2025

15 August
African Union joins calls to end use of Mercator map that shrinks continent’s size
Member states back Correct the Map campaign that urges governments and organisations to use more accurate map
The African Union has backed a campaign to end the use by governments and international organisations of the 16th-century Mercator map of the world in favour of one that more accurately displays Africa’s size.
Created by the cartographer Gerardus Mercator for navigation, the projection distorts continent sizes, enlarging areas near the poles like North America and Greenland while shrinking Africa and South America. “It might seem to be just a map, but in reality, it is not,” the African Union Commission deputy chair, Selma Malika Haddadi, told Reuters, saying the Mercator fostered a false impression that Africa was “marginal”, despite being the world’s second-largest continent by area, with more than 1 billion people. The union has 55 member states.
Criticism of the Mercator map is not new, but the Correct the Map campaign led by the advocacy groups Africa No Filter and Speak Up Africa has revived the debate, urging organisations to adopt the 2018 Equal Earth projection, which tries to reflect countries’ true sizes.
Correct the Map wants organisations such as the World Bank and the UN to adopt the Equal Earth map. A World Bank spokesperson said it already used the Winkel tripel projection or Equal Earth for static maps and was phasing out Mercator on web maps.
The campaign said it had sent a request to the UN geospatial body, UN-GGIM. A UN spokesperson said that once received it must be reviewed and approved by a committee of experts.