A New Perspective on Our World Map
The maps we've all grown up with might be lying to us. The African Union is challenging a long-held geographical standard, urging the world to abandon a map that misrepresents the true size of Africa and skews our perception of the planet.
The Geographical Illusion
According to the provided text, the African Union is officially backing the "The Map is Wrong" campaign, launched by the organization "Africa No Filter." This campaign calls on governments and international bodies to stop using the centuries-old Mercator projection—a map created in the 16th century—and to instead adopt a more accurate representation of the world.
The core issue with the Mercator map is that it's a geographical illusion. It severely distorts the relative sizes of continents, making some appear much larger than they truly are. As Selma Malika Hadadi, the Deputy Chairperson of the African Union Commission, put it, the map "distorts perceptions" by making Africa—the world’s second-largest continent and home to over a billion people—appear "small" in comparison to other landmasses.
Why the Map is Wrong
While the Mercator map is familiar to us all, its inaccuracies are significant. It exaggerates the size of countries and regions near the poles, famously making Greenland look as big as Africa, when in reality, Africa is more than 14 times larger. It similarly inflates the size of North America, while making equatorial landmasses like Africa and South America look considerably smaller than they are.
Despite these well-known flaws, the text notes that this outdated map remains a common sight in classrooms and on digital platforms worldwide. The African Union's campaign aims to correct this long-standing misrepresentation and bring a more accurate image of our world to the forefront.
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