The world’s most common map was drawn in 1569 by Gerardus Mercator to help ships hold a straight course, and it stretches everything far from the equator: Canada, Russia and Europe swell to 2, 3 and 4 times their true area, and Greenland grows to match a continent 14 times its size. Africa, sitting on the equator, is the one place it draws almost true, which is why it looks small by comparison. Four and a half centuries later, on 4 September 2026, the UN General Assembly voted 164 to 1 to back a fairer picture: the Equal Earth projection, championed by the African Union’s Correct The Map campaign. Drag the slider to watch the world settle into its true proportions.
© 2026 Lamprini Papargyri · Design, text and code all rights reserved · Shared under CC BY‑NC‑ND 4.0: share with credit, no modifications, no commercial use.
Land: Natural Earth (50m); Mercator cut at 84° north and south, as it cannot show the poles; Crimea shown within Ukraine’s internationally recognised borders. Projections: Mercator; Equal Earth, Šavrič, Patterson & Jenny 2018. Areas: Africa 30.37M km², Greenland 2.17M km², Russia 17.10M km², Canada 9.98M km²; other countries computed from the map geometry (land only). UN resolution adopted 4 Sept 2026, non‑binding.