The Map That Misrepresents the World's Largest Continent The United Nations General Assembly has voted to adopt a new world map that accurately reflects Africa's size.
This move is long overdue, as the traditional Mercator map has perpetuated a geographical lie for centuries by showing Africa comparable in size to Greenland, despite being 14 times larger.
Cartographers have known since Gerardus Mercator's time that his creation was a compromise – a two dimensional representation of a three dimensional globe.