Nearly every country at the United Nations General Assembly backed a resolution to promote maps that accurately show the size of continents, but millions still rely on the Mercator map, a 16th-century projection that skews the size of landmasses. On September 4, the African-led resolution attracted 164 votes in favour, with six abstaining, while the United States voted against, calling it a "radical ideological project".

The non-binding resolution encourages governments, schools, and technology companies to use the Equal Earth projection and other equal-area maps. Despite these efforts, many popular navigation apps, such as Google Maps and Apple Maps, continue to use Mercator maps, with Google Maps alone boasting over 2 billion monthly users.

The Mercator projection, originally developed by Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator in 1569, was practical for maritime navigation. It showed straight lines consistent with how ships might move when consistently following a compass bearing. However, this practicality comes at a cost: the Mercator map inflates the size of landmasses the further they are from the Earth’s equator, leading to absurdities such as Africa appearing to be the same size as Greenland, despite being 14 times larger.

The skewed sizing on the Mercator map can have geopolitical implications. A study published in Communication Reports found that national security arguments paired with the Mercator map influenced how people evaluated the Trump administration’s proposal to purchase Greenland.