Decisive continent .. an African campaign to correct the map of the world news

In an unprecedented initiative led by Africans from within the continent to re -introduce it, the young Nigerian activist Abimpola Ogundiro, 28, launched a global campaign to reform Africa’s representation on the world map, calling for abandoning what she described as “the most misleading maps”, referring to the dropping of “Mercury” whose copies are widely used in schools, digital maps and official references.

The campaign, titled “Correct the World Map” and led by Africa No Filter, is to pressure international institutions, similar United Nations The World Bank, as well as educational systems, to adopt more accurate and fair maps, reflects the true size of the continents and countries, especially Africa Which has long suffered according to the campaign’s organizers, from “deliberate dwarf” in the global visual perception.

“When I told my uncle that the United States, China and India can all expand in Africa, he was shocked and deceived, and this is not an exaggeration, but rather a fact supported by numbers, but it is absent from the awareness of people because of Mercury’s map.”

Africa to drop Mercury

Mercury map, developed in 1599 to facilitate maritime navigation, shows the global north – such as Europe and North America – with amplified sizes, while largely reduces the size of Africa and South America.

For example, Greenland appears near the area of ​​Africa, although the continent can be more than 14 times.

Geography experts note that the dropping of Mercury maintains the corners and shapes, which makes it suitable for navigation, but it is completely unsuccessful in terms of the scale of the space.

“Mercury is not a conspiracy in itself, but it reflects a biased vision of the world that has been serving the major powers for centuries,” says Dr. Lindsie Frederick Brown of Oregon University, adding that the reason for its spread is its availability in marine maps, and also because it reflects a comfortable vision of the world for the parties whose countries see larger.

In 1973, the German Arno Peters announced that his new drop known as “the overthrow of Peters” is the “only micro -map”, considering that it is a fair alternative to the Mercury map, which he described as “European concentrated”.

In 2016, Peters’ projection was adopted in Boston in US The American, because it provides a more fair representation of space, while others criticized it as distorting the geometric shapes, and lacks the visual balance.

New Earth Map

In the midst of the controversy that has been going on for the projections of maps of a floor, a team of researchers led by the world of maps, Tom Patterson, announced in 2018 a new drop called “equal land.”

This projection shows almost its real size, and today is considered one of the most accurate models in terms of space, the model adopted by the Eugendairo campaign.

Greenland’s “Earth Earth” map shows its real size after being amplified in dropping Mercury.

The new map was supported by prestigious institutions, as it was adopted by the US Space Agency (Nassa), And adopted it World Bank Officially in 2024.

In an explanation of the island, a World Bank spokesman said that “the group is committed to accurate and fair representation of all the peoples of the world, on all its platforms.”

Long way

But Eugendairo confirms that change will not come from abroad alone, and take responsibility for the Africans themselves, saying, “For centuries, the map of the world has been drawn with non -African pens, reflecting external interests and agendas … It is time for us to hold us with the pen and tell the world our visual story with ourselves, not to continue accepting the narration of others.”

“This map does not only affect geography, but also economy, tourism, education, and collective imagination, and as long as Africa appears small and ineffective, it will also be treated politically and economically.”

Despite the dispute between maps schools, the African campaign agrees on a central point, which is “the necessity of stopping the use of colonial models to form the awareness of future generations, and moving towards maps that reflect a more honest reality.”

Eugendairo considers that the map is not just an educational tool, it is a power tool, and the more distorted Africa’s image on it, the longer its image in the minds of the world is long.