Togo’s Foreign Minister Robert Dussey has called on the United Nations to back a campaign to redraw world maps so Africa is represented accurately, arguing that the widely used Mercator projection distorts the continent’s true size. Speaking at the UN during the launch of the “Correct the Map” campaign, Dussey criticized centuries of cartographic bias that make Africa appear far smaller than its actual scale. He pointed out that Africa covers 30.3 million square kilometers, about 20% of Earth’s landmass and nearly 6% of the planet’s surface.
In reality, the continent is large enough to fit the United States, Russia, India, France, the United Kingdom, and China combined yet maps often minimize it compared to Europe and North America. Dussey stressed that this misrepresentation feeds outdated perceptions of Africa’s place in the world, undermining its global significance. With Africa’s population expected to reach 1.5 billion by 2030, or nearly 18% of humanity, Togo urged both the UN and the African Union to formally support the “Decolonize Geography” initiative and adopt a more accurate political map. The campaign adds to broader calls from African leaders for fairer global representation not just in geography, but also in institutions such as the UN Security Council and international finance bodies.
