Why Africa’s True Size Matters: The Fight to #CorrectTheMap with Equal Earth

Why Africa’s True Size Matters: The Fight to #CorrectTheMap with Equal Earth

The push to "correct the map" isn't a sudden 2025 phenomenon—it's the latest chapter in a 500-year saga where cartography has been weaponized, debated, and reformed. Maps have never been mere drawings; they're instruments of power, shaping how empires expand, how resources are claimed, and how identities are formed. The African Union's endorsement of the Equal Earth projection on August 14, 2025, via the Correct the Map campaign, echoes historical efforts to dismantle visual biases rooted in European dominance. To understand this, we need to trace the evolution from ancient mapping to modern alternatives, highlighting how projections like Mercator became "default" through inertia, imperialism, and convenience.

1. Ancient Roots: Maps as Symbols of Control Before Projections

Long before Gerardus Mercator's 1569 innovation, maps were political artifacts. In ancient Mesopotamia (circa 2300 BCE), clay tablets depicted land ownership and irrigation systems, asserting royal authority over territory. The Egyptians (around 1500 BCE) used maps for tomb layouts and Nile Valley surveys, tying geography to divine kingship. By the Roman era, Ptolemy's *Geographia* (2nd century CE) introduced a grid system for the known world, but it centered on the Mediterranean—reflecting Rome's imperial gaze.

These early maps weren't about accurate scale; they were narrative devices. They exaggerated familiar regions and marginalized the "barbaric" periphery. This Eurocentric (or more accurately, Mediterranean-centric) tradition persisted into the Middle Ages, with T-O maps portraying Jerusalem at the center, dividing the world into Asia, Europe, and Africa as symbolic thirds. Africa, often depicted as a vague southern landmass teeming with mythical creatures, was visually diminished from the start—not due to math, but cultural bias.

2. The Age of Discovery: Cartography Fuels Colonial Expansion (1400s–1600s)

The Renaissance sparked a mapping boom, driven by European voyages. Portuguese explorers like Henry the Navigator (1394–1460) funded charts for African coastal navigation, but these maps served extraction: gold, slaves, and spices. Christopher Columbus's voyages (1492 onward) relied on flawed projections that underestimated distances, yet they enabled Spain's claims over the Americas.

Enter Gerardus Mercator (1512–1594), a Flemish cartographer whose 1569 world map revolutionized navigation. Mercator's projection solved a practical problem: representing the spherical Earth on a flat surface while preserving angles (conformal property). This allowed sailors to plot straight-line courses (rhumb lines) using compasses, crucial for transatlantic trade and conquest. However, it exponentially inflated areas toward the poles—making Europe, Russia, and Greenland appear disproportionately large while shrinking equatorial zones like Africa.

Mercator himself acknowledged limitations; his map was for mariners, not educators. But European powers adopted it widely. Why? Printing technology (Gutenberg's press, 1440s) enabled mass production, and colonial empires—Spain, Portugal, Britain, France—funded mapmakers. Maps became tools for "claiming" land: the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas divided the "New World" between Spain and Portugal along a meridian, ignoring indigenous realities. By the 1600s, Dutch East India Company maps using Mercator variants facilitated spice trade routes, embedding the projection in global commerce.

This era's legacy? Maps visually justified colonialism. Africa's interior remained "blank" on European maps until the 19th century Scramble for Africa, allowing explorers like David Livingstone (1813–1873) to "fill in" spaces as if discovering unclaimed territory. The visual compression of Africa reinforced narratives of it as a "dark continent" ripe for exploitation.

3. Imperial Peak and Entrenchment: Mercator's Dominance in the 19th–20th Centuries

The 19th century saw Mercator solidify as the educational standard, thanks to British imperial influence. The Royal Geographical Society (founded 1830) promoted Mercator-based atlases, aligning with the British Empire's peak (controlling 23% of the world by 1920). School maps in colonies depicted a bloated Britain at the center, diminishing local lands—psychological warfare that internalized inferiority.

Critiques emerged early. Arno Peters (1916–2002), a German historian, lambasted Mercator in the 1970s for its "Eurocentric" bias, proposing the Gall-Peters projection (based on James Gall's 1855 work). Peters argued it preserved areas accurately, revealing Africa's true scale (14 times Greenland's size). His 1973 map sparked the "Peters Controversy," adopted by UNESCO and the UN for development reports to counter distortion. However, critics like the American Cartographic Association (1989) called it aesthetically ugly, distorting shapes (e.g., stretching Africa vertically).

Meanwhile, other equal-area alternatives proliferated:

- Mollweide (1805): Elliptical, good for global themes but interrupts oceans.

- Goode's Homolosine (1923): "Orange peel" design, minimizing distortion but "interrupted" for continuity.

- Robinson (1963): A compromise projection, used by National Geographic until 1988 for its balance of size and shape.

These weren't widely adopted due to inertia: textbooks, wall maps, and government documents stuck with Mercator for familiarity. Post-WWII, the Cold War further entrenched it—U.S. and Soviet maps emphasized polar regions for military strategy.

4. Decolonization and Modern Resistance: From Peters to Equal Earth (1960s–Present)

As African nations gained independence (e.g., Ghana 1957, Nigeria 1960), cartographic decolonization began. Kwame Nkrumah's pan-African vision challenged Western narratives, but maps lagged. The 1980s saw momentum: Boston Public Schools adopted Peters maps in 1988 after advocacy from civil rights groups, highlighting how Mercator undermined Black identity.

The digital age accelerated change. Google Maps (2005) uses Web Mercator (a variant), but apps like The True Size (2012) allow drag-and-drop comparisons, virally exposing distortions. Bojan Šavrič, Bernhard Jenny, and Tom Patterson introduced the Equal Earth projection in 2018, inspired by Robinson but fully equal-area. It's aesthetically pleasing—continents retain familiar shapes without excessive stretching—making it ideal for education. NASA, National Geographic, and the World Bank have experimented with it.

Africa-led groups like Africa No Filter (founded 2019) and Speak Up Africa amplified this. The Correct the Map campaign, launched in early 2025, built on these efforts, culminating in AU backing. This isn't isolated; it parallels movements like renaming colonial streets (e.g., Congo's 2021 efforts) and revising curricula to center African histories.

5. Historical Lessons and the Campaign's Place

History shows maps evolve with purpose: Mercator for navigation, Peters for equity debates, Equal Earth for modern balance. The AU's push is a post-colonial reclamation, addressing how centuries of visual bias fueled exploitation—from slave trade routes to unequal aid distribution. Yet, as cartographer Mark Monmonier notes in *How to Lie with Maps* (1991), all projections "lie" by necessity; the key is choosing lies that serve justice over convenience.

This campaign could mark a turning point, much like the 1989 cartographic debates led to wider projection literacy. But success depends on global adoption—echoing how European powers once imposed Mercator. If it succeeds, it won't just resize Africa; it'll rewrite how future generations perceive power.