Equal Earth Map Better Represents Africa than Mercator

By Jeffery Kazembe Batts
IG: @kazbatts
Fall is approaching, and school is back in session. While many prepare to start learning in academic institutions, most of the world has already been miseducated about basic geography. “Africa No Filter” and “Speak Up Africa”, along with the African Union, are working to change common knowledge about the size of the various continents, with a “Correct the Map Campaign”. For centuries, the world has been misled about the relative size of the seven continents commonly recognized as Africa, Antarctica, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America, and South America.

Africa and South America are shrunk in the widely used Mercator projection maps. AU Deputy Chairperson Selma Malika Haddadi told Reuters that the Mercator map falsely portrays Africa as “marginal.” The African Union plans to address this misleading view of the planet at an upcoming African Union summit.

In 1569, Flemish geographer and cartographer Gerardus Mercator created the map that bears his name. The map was a boast to sailors during the age of European colonial expansion. A viewer of the Mercator projection map would think that Greenland, which covers less than one million square miles, is about the same size as Africa, which is almost 12 million square miles in area. Since a sphere can’t be accurately displayed on a two-dimensional paper, all maps of Earth have deficiencies. Besides the Mercator projection, there are other maps such as the Gall-Peters projection, the Robinson projection, and the Natural Earth projection.

In 2018, Bojan Savric, Bernhard Jenny, and Tom Patterson invented the Equal Earth projection map, with curved sides that more accurately represent the size of the continents. This is the map that current cartographers and truth believers have rallied around. “Maps shape how we see the world and also how power is perceived.

So, by correcting the map, we also correct the global narrative about Africa,” said deputy executive director of Speak Up, Fara Ndiaye. “It may seem to be just a map, but in reality, it’s not. It marginalizes Africa.” Shared deputy chairwoman of the African Union’s executive arm, Selma Malika Haddadi. Focusing on the need for accurate maps is part of the African Union and pan-Africanist to reclaim Africa’s rightful place on the world stage.

As the semester begins check your children’s textbooks for accurate information. Review the maps that you have in your home and are familiar with. Google Maps uses a 3D globe on its desktop version, but the mobile app still uses the Mercator projection. At a time when Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida and President Trump are doing all they can to undermine education in general and Black history and studies in particular, truth must be the focus. Africa is the world’s second-largest continent, and maps and teaching must reflect this fact.