Moving away from Mercator for maps of the world

For Reuters, Catarina Demony and Ayendeng Bior report on the African Union’s push for the Equal Area projection (above) instead of the ill-used Mercator projection:

“It might seem to be just a map, but in reality, it is not,” AU Commission deputy chairperson Selma Malika Haddadi told Reuters, saying the Mercator fostered a false impression that Africa was “marginal”, despite being the world’s second-largest continent by area, with over a billion people. The AU has 55 member states.

Such stereotypes influence media, education and policy, she said.

The Mercator projection is good for location directions, but for world maps, the size of countries and continents is not proportional to reality. Africa in particular looks much smaller than it is with Mercator.

Of course, it is impossible to read this and not mention the scene from West Wing when geographer’s also urge against Mercator:

See also: the true size of Africa.