African Union Backs Campaign to Adopt More Realistic World Map

The African Union has thrown its weight behind a campaign to adopt a world map that more accurately reflects the continent’s relative size than the one currently adorning most geography-class walls.

The so-called Mercator projection, in use since the 16th century, makes Africa look comparatively small as it inflates the size of land masses further away from the equator. As a result, the continent appears to be roughly as big as Greenland, though it’s about 14 times as large.