Have you ever looked at a traditional world map and wondered, “Is Greenland truly that big?” You’re not alone.

Just last week the United Nations General Assembly chose to take a step towards changing the way we picture our planet.  On September 4, 2026 the UN overwhelmingly endorsed a resolution encouraging wider use of equal-area map projections, including the Equal Earth projection (rather than defaulting to the familiar Mercator projection) when showing the relative size of countries and continents.

For travelers, there is good news:
The world itself hasn’t changed.  Our maps are simply getting better at portraying it.

What’s wrong with the map we’ve always used?

The Mercator projection was created in 1569 by Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator.  Designed for seafaring navigation, its great strength is the translation of directions and navigation lines from a globe to a flat surface, enabling sailors to plot courses across the oceans.

However Mercator has a tradeoff.  As you move farther north or south from the Equator, land areas appear increasingly enlarged.  This results in a world map that gives us very misleading impressions of the size of Greenland and Antarctica.  On a typical Mercator map, Greenland appears surprisingly comparable in size to Africa.  In reality, Africa is roughly 14 times larger than Greenland.  What a difference!

Enter the equal-area map

An equal-area projection takes a different approach.  Instead of prioritizing the preservation of navigation lines, an equal-area projection is designed so that the relative sizes of land areas are represented much more accurately.

The Equal Earth projection, developed in 2018, is one example.  It gives a much better visual sense of the actual scale of the world’s continents.  South America looks appropriately enormous.  Greenland is presented realistically.  Northern countries lose some of their visual exaggeration and the vast landmasses closer to the Equator receive the geographic real estate they actually occupy.

For those of us who love to travel, this reality check is reassuring - we have a better representation of all there is to explore!

Navigation isn’t changing - don’t panic!

The UN resolution does not ban the Mercator projection or require every map in the world to be replaced.  Instead, it encourages the use of equal-area projections when communicating the relative size of destinations.

This makes sense.  Different maps, designed for different roles.

A map used to picture the relative size of continents has different requirements from a chart used to help a navigator plot a course.  The concern was not Mercator’s usefulness in navigation but the side-effects of using a tool optimized for navigational calculations being our sole mental picture for the size of our coasts and continents.

So your next cruise isn’t going to require a cartography refresher course, the airlines won’t need to redefine East and West and your GPS isn’t suddenly going to send you in the wrong direction or crash with a massive update.  Navigation standards remain the same.

What is evolving is the way we choose to illustrate and teach the world - we’re expanding our toolkit.

Why does this matter to travelers?

At ATC, we love the idea that a map is more than an instrument to help us get somewhere.

A map sparks curiosity and imagination.  It can cause wonder at how large a region really is.  It encourages us to compare cultures, landscapes, the history of how borders were shaped, the nuance of climate and communities.  It reminds us the world is considerably larger - and more wonderfully diverse - than a familiar rectangle on a classroom wall might suggest.

That matters when we travel.

Africa isn’t a small corner of the map.  It is a vast continent containing 54 countries, extraordinary geographic diversity and countless cultures.  South America isn’t a narrow slice tucked beneath North America.  Asia isn’t merely a large blob at the top of the page and the Pacific isn’t an empty space separating the Americas from Asia and Oceania.

Proportions matter because they influence how we imagine the world before we ever set foot in it.

A new map isn’t a judgement on the old one

There is another reason we like this change:  it gives us an opportunity to appreciate what different maps are actually trying to accomplish.

Mercator wasn’t created because someone wanted to make Africa look smaller.  It was created to solve a specific navigation problem - and it did that remarkably well.  The problem comes when we forget that every flat map is a compromise.  Out planet is roughly spherical.  A map is flat.

There is no way to flatten a globe without introducing some type of distortion.  Some projections preserve area.  Others preserve direction.  Others emphasize distance, shape or particular geographic regions.  

So when we choose a map, let’s first ask which map is the right tool for what we’re trying to understand - what are we looking for?

Seeing the world a bit more accurately

For travelers perhaps the nicest thing about this change is what it represents.  The world isn’t getting smaller, nor is it getting bigger.  We’re simply getting a more accurate picture of the remarkable planet we’re fortunate enough to explore.  That seems like something worth celebrating.

So the next time you see an Equal Earth map and think, “That looks different”, take a moment to look again.

You may discover the world hasn’t changed at all.  Our perspective has.
And sometimes, a fresh perspective is exactly what inspires the next journey.