On April 14, 2026, Reuters reported from Lomé, citing Togo's foreign minister: the West African nation plans to submit a draft resolution to the United Nations, calling for a gradual phase-out of map projections such as Mercator — which often depict the African continent as smaller than its actual size — in international settings and public education materials. Instead, it advocates for greater use of equal-area projections that more faithfully represent the area ratios of countries.
Togo, located along the Gulf of Guinea and a member of the African Union (AU), has garnered considerable support from more than 50 AU member states. The AU is also advancing related initiatives, moving the question of "how the world map should be drawn" from classrooms and media onto the diplomatic agenda. The Reuters report emphasized that on commonly used world maps, Africa sometimes appears roughly the same size as Greenland, whereas in reality, Africa is about 14 times larger. This stark contrast is one of the issues Togo hopes the international community will address.
