UN Equal Earth Map Draws Fire Over Disputed Territories — SkimNews
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- UN General Assembly voted 164-6 last week to encourage adoption of the Equal Earth projection over Mercator, with the US as the sole opponent; six countries including Ukraine abstained
- African Union led months of lobbying for the change and adopted the Equal Earth map in February, arguing the Mercator projection disproportionately shrinks Africa — Greenland is shown as the same size as Africa despite fitting into it 14 times
- Ukraine abstained because Russian-occupied Crimea appears shaded closer to Russia's color than Ukraine's; envoy Andrii Melnyk warned the map could open a "Pandora's box" enabling "abuse and distortion" of world cartography
- Japan voted in favor but asked Equal Earth's creators to alter the map because the disputed Kuril Islands share color with Russian territory; Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara said Tokyo must "prevent incorrect perceptions" from spreading
- Russia and Japan have disputed the four islands — known as the Southern Kurils in Russia and Northern Territories in Japan — since Soviet forces annexed them in 1945; President Putin made his first visit to the islands in August, which PM Sanae Takaichi called "absolutely unacceptable"
- India voted in favor but issued a statement insisting Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh must be depicted per India's official map; spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal called any inaccurate depiction of India's sovereign territory "unacceptable"
Why it matters: A map championed to correct the colonial-era shrinking of Africa is immediately entangled in at least three active territorial disputes — Crimea, the Kuril Islands, and Kashmir — where the new color schemes visually associate disputed lands with their occupiers. That gives Russia, and implicitly Pakistan and China, a cartographic foothold in disputes the UN has otherwise condemned, potentially limiting how broadly member states actually adopt the new projection.
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