DG Outtake #6: The true size of Africa

This is one of a series of blog posts linked to the research I did for the 'Discover Geography' series, and mentioning some of the reading I did to prepare some of the chapters.

Not all of this material made it into the final book so I'm sharing it in these posts.

In the chapter on Africa which I wrote for 'Discover Geography' - the Year 8 book - I discussed a map which the African nations want to be used more often to get over the problems with the Mercator projection.

The push for this has come from a number of African nations, and Togo's foreign minister recently said the country will ask United Nations member states to adopt a world map that more accurately reflects Africa's true size and ditch the 16th-century Mercator projection - which was designed for a different purpose.


The African Union has ⁠tasked Togo with promoting a 'Correct the Map' campaign to end the use of the Mercator ​map by governments and international organisations.

The campaign, led by advocacy groups Africa No Filter and Speak Up ​Africa, calls for adoption of the 2018 Equal Earth projection, which tries to reflect countries' true sizes.

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