A recent near-unanimous vote in the United Nations to adopt a recalibrated world map hardly raised a few eyebrows, given the overstimulated world in which we live today.
However, this adoption marks a large shift in the way that the globe can be viewed. It also points to how maps reveal equations of power, access and representation.
The UN’s objective of “promoting map projections that more accurately reflect the true size of continents” is a long-standing demand from countries in Africa which felt, and could prove, that the relative size of their continent and of Europe was disproportionate.
For the last 400 years, the Mercator map has been commonly used.
This was a map created by a Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator in 1569 to aid European sailors who explored the ‘new lands’ and travelled across the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.
For various technical reasons like reproducing the curvature of the globe on a flat surface, the areas near the equator seemed smaller than those in the north. This also made the poles seem stretched and larger than they really are.
This map has been used for hundreds of years, and today’s digital maps also follow it.
The repercussions of disproportionate depiction of the globe are more than a drawing defect. They have consequences that include historical, economic and political fallout, which we continue to see today.
An important effect of this traditional map is the psychological impact. For example, Africa is depicted as being similar in size to Greenland, while it is in fact 14 times bigger. According to experts, this reduced the importance of this large continent, its natural resources and its huge potential, reducing investments and opportunities.
This is asserted by an official release by the United Nations which quoted Togo’s foreign minister Rober Dussey as saying: “Maps shape our understanding of the world. They guide education, nourish the imagination, and influence collective perceptions."
This ‘Equal Earth Map’, created by members of the African Union, has its own limitations, as it makes other parts of the globe seem small, especially the northern part of Russia.
The use of this map is not mandatory, but just recommended, and may not make much difference to maps in textbooks and official documents.
The important outcome of this discussion at the UN, however, is to reignite an interest in cartography and recognise how maps are more than visual representations of oceans, mountains and rivers.
The physical boundaries of countries change, largely because of political considerations, and most immediately, owing to environmental factors.
In fact, the lines on a map are being literally re-drawn as boundaries of deserts end, frozen landmasses thaw and areas of tornado formation shift.
Environmentalists suggest that the Tropic of Cancer is shifting, as increasing heat patterns make areas around it drier. The tropics, known for lush vegetation and incessant rain, are now getting drier and less green, perhaps needing a redefinition of the term.
The Sahara Desert, easily spotted on the map, has also increased by 10 per cent since the 1920s, although this has yet to be officially marked.
This is in addition to the information we already have about the permafrost in the Arctic and Antarctica thawing, creating more water bodies than mountains.
The environmental impact of these changes in the direction of rivers has been recently felt in the disastrous flooding in Nepal, which was the result of breaking glaciers far up in the Himalayas.
Perhaps the only takeaway from this is that the world map, like so much else in the world today, is more than a static entity and is subject to all the political, economic and environmental stressors that are indicative of this century.
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