UN Backs Equal-Earth Map to Reduce Mercator Distortion

# UN Backs Equal-Earth Map to Reduce Mercator Distortion ### Why in News? The UN General Assembly voted to phase out use of the traditional **Mercator projection** in favour of the **Equal Earth projection** for more accurate representation of land area. ### Key Details - A **map projection** converts the curved surface of Earth onto a flat map; every projection introduces some distortion. - The **Mercator projection**, created for navigation, greatly enlarges areas near the poles—making places such as Greenland appear far larger relative to equatorial regions such as Africa. - The **Equal Earth projection** is an **equal-area projection**, designed so that countries and continents are shown in more accurate relative size. - The source highlights that **Africa is about 14 times larger than Greenland**, despite their misleading appearance on many Mercator maps. ### Exam Connect - **Mercator projection** → Gerardus Mercator, 1569 → useful for navigation but distorts area - **Equal Earth projection** → equal-area map projection developed in 2018