ALT After nearly 500 years of the Mercator projection shaping how much of the world visualizes Earth, the United Nations General Assembly has backed a major change. On September 4, 2026, 164 countries voted in favor of encouraging the use of the Equal Earth projection, which preserves the relative sizes of landmasses far more accurately. The familiar Mercator map, created in 1569 for navigation, dramatically enlarges regions near the poles—making Greenland appear almost as large as Africa even though Africa is roughly 14 times larger. The new approach doesn’t change borders or the actual geography; it changes how countries and continents are proportioned on a flat map. The UN resolution is non-binding and does not ban Mercator, but encourages governments, schools, organizations and technology companies to use equal-area maps when accurate comparisons of land size matter. �