The United Nations on Friday was one vote shy of unanimously adopting a new map of the world that shows Africa's true size, making the continent appear far larger than it does on traditional maps.The United States was the only one of the 165 member nations to vote against the UN General Assembly resolution to accept the Equal Earth map projection, which depicts countries and continents in their true relative sizes, according to the map creator's website.Six nations abstained, including Estonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Moldova, Serbia and Ukraine.Yaryna Ferencevych, the deputy U.S.representative to the U.N.
Economic and Social Council, said the resolution was presented as "an anodyne effort to update cartographic proportions" but was, in her view, part of a "much larger and more radical ideological project."Yaryna Ferencevych, the deputy U.S.representative to the United Nations Economic and Social Council, speaks against adopting the Equal Earth world map during the 114th plenary meeting of the 80th session of the U.N.
General Assembly on Sept.4, 2026.
(United Nations)TRUMP ADMINISTRATION REJECTS UN MIGRATION DECLARATION, SAYS 'MASS MIGRATION WAS NEVER SAFE'"Instead of focusing on genuine problems of international peace, prosperity, or good relations, this body is debating map projects from the 16th century and their role in promoting reparations and cognitive justice," Ferencevych said Friday during the 114th Plenary meeting."Resolutions like this one and the ideological agenda they promote are barnacles on our work here and the reason this institution is losing its credibility," she added.Ferencevych was referring to the Mercator projection, created in 1569 to aid maritime navigation.To this day, it is seen as the traditional world map and is used in many school textbooks and atlases.It enlarges land masses near the poles and reduces the apparent size of those near the equator, making Africa appear far smaller relative to Greenland and Europe than it is in reality....