How big is Africa really? Why the UN voted to change the world map

The United Nations has voted to adopt a new world map designed to alter the perceived sizes of various global regions. Under the updated projection, continents and regions such as Africa, Latin America, South Asia, and Oceania are represented as larger compared to their depiction on the traditional Mercator projection.

The adoption of the new map addresses longstanding geographical distortions inherent in the centuries-old Mercator projection, which famously exaggerates the size of landmasses closer to the poles—such as North America and Europe—while shrinking those near the equator.