The Korea Times
CAPE TOWN/ADDIS ABABA — Maps are never neutral. They are instruments of knowledge, yes, but also of power, ideology, and often manipulation. Nowhere is this more evident than in the depiction of Africa. For centuries, the Mercator projection — still ubiquitous in classrooms, media, and digital platforms — has misrepresented Africa’s true scale, making one of the world’s largest landmasses appear deceptively small. At more than 30 million square kilometers (11.7 million square miles), Africa is larger than the United States, China, India, and much of Europe combined. Yet on most maps, it appears comparable in size to Greenland, a landmass that is 14 times smaller. Far from a harmless visual inconsistency, that distortion has long shaped narratives about Africa’s significance, resources, and potential. A global initiative, Correct the Map, seeks to address this imbalance, not merely by adjusting cartographic conventions, but by challenging the deeper distortions that shape how the world sees Africa — and how Africa sees itself. The Mercator projection, developed by the Flemis
Go to News Site