The most widely used global map is almost 500 years old and was designed for navigation. But landmasses near the poles look larger than their actual relative sizes, and those near the equator look muc ...

The Mercator map, which most of us grew up with, makes Africa look smaller and Greenland much larger than they are-but that's just the tip of the iceberg.

The Mercator Projection, which preserves shape and direction but distorts relative landmass. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia ...

The UN has endorsed a new world map using the Equal Earth projection. See how the map compares and why Africa gains the most relative size.

Africa has long been represented as smaller than its real size in maps, which are largely based on an ancient projection.

Letters: The transverse Mercator projection was created for European sailors – and it worked for their world, writes Paul Harwood ...

Judging distance by miles is good enough for most of us on the ground, but for ocean-going vessels and spacecraft nautical ...

Pick which country is bigger, then watch it morph from Mercator to Equal Earth projection to see how close you were.

The U.N. voted to promote map projections that more accurately represent the world, drawing official opposition from the U.S.

However, the Mercator map comes with the trade-off of showing inaccurate sizes for continents. Landmasses become artificially enlarged the farther they are from the Earth’s equator, which leads to ...

The UN General Assembly has endorsed a non-binding, African-led resolution promoting equal-area map projections such as Equal Earth to better represent the size of continents.

Equal Earth is ontworpen om landen in hun werkelijke relatieve grootte weer te geven en is een VN-initiatief onder leiding van Togo met steun van de Afrikaanse Unie bij de VN.