From Dependency to Influence: How the Global South Changed the United Nations’ Map?

The United Nations General Assembly’s resolution on ‘Correct the Map’ extends beyond the technical debate over map projections. It reveals a new arena of symbolic contestation in which countries of the Global South are seeking to renegotiate how the world is represented. The resolution encourages the use of equal-area projections, particularly Equal Earth. It neither prescribes a single map nor alters national borders but confers explicit UN legitimacy on a longstanding African demand: that the continent should not be depicted in education, the media or international institutions in ways that diminish its spatial weight relative to northern regions. Viewed in this light, the vote represents more than a geographical correction. It marks a political breakthrough in ‘visual governance’, where knowledge intersects with power and the image of the world presented to the public becomes a matter for negotiation within the multilateral system.

This initiative comes at a time when countries of the Global South are increasingly able to place questions of identity and representation on the international agenda. The resolution’s adoption demonstrates that soft power operates not only through culture and discourse but also through the standards that shape public knowledge. Changing a map projection will not, in itself, redirect investment or reconfigure supply chains. It does, however, provide a narrative instrument through which countries in Africa, Latin America and South Asia can highlight the scale of their markets, the reach of their corridors and their position within global resource and trade networks. ‘Visual emancipation’ thus offers a means of presenting the South’s geoeconomic weight anew: a framework that helps make its material sources of power more visible and encourages them to be taken more seriously.

Throughout history, maps have been among the most influential instruments of epistemic authority. They serve practical purposes in navigation and administration, while also determining what occupies the centre, what appears at the margins, how borders are drawn and how places are named. Cartography has therefore been inseparable from the state and empire. Maps have been used in surveying, taxation, military campaigns and the delineation of spheres of influence, helping to turn geographical space into a domain that can be administered and controlled. Every map carry, alongside its data, assumptions about purpose, scale, projection and the viewer’s standpoint. Reading a map consequently requires more than asking whether it is accurate. It demands a more political set of questions: accurate for what purpose, who chose this way of depicting the world, and what perceptions does that choice entrench when it becomes a widely accepted standard?

Since the sixteenth century, the Mercator projection has occupied an exceptional position in world cartography. Designed primarily for navigation, it preserves angles and represents constant bearings as straight lines but increasingly exaggerates area towards the poles. The problem lies in its adoption as a general image of the world in classrooms, the media and digital platforms, including settings where comparing areas is the principal objective, rather than in its use for the task for which it was designed. The consequences are particularly clear in the comparison between Africa and Greenland. On many Mercator maps, they appear similar in size, whereas Africa covers approximately 30.37 million square kilometres, nearly fourteen times Greenland’s roughly 2.17 million square kilometres. Repeated across generations, this image does not create political marginalisation on its own but supplies it with a visual language consistent with the North’s centrality in the global imagination.

The Correct the Map resolution, led by Togo on behalf of the African Group and supported by the African Union, brings this objection into an international institutional framework. The General Assembly adopted the text contained in document A/80/L.104 with 164 countries voting in favour, the United States alone voting against, and six abstentions. The political significance of this outcome lies in the breadth of support beyond Africa and the countries traditionally associated with the Global South, encompassing European states and international powers with divergent interests. The resolution is not legally binding and does not affect sovereignty, borders or the legal status of disputed territories. It does, however, call on educational institutions, the media, international organisations and digital platforms to give serious consideration to projections better suited to depicting relative areas. Its principal strength therefore lies in transforming ‘visual justice’ from an African advocacy campaign into an international norm capable of wider adoption.

Maps derive their strategic importance from their ability to translate physical geography into a political image that can be understood and circulated. A map gives a state a spatial representation, supports its historical narrative and shows the public where borders, depth, centres and peripheries lie. States also use maps to establish place names, assert territorial claims and normalise particular conceptions of space and influence. Although the Correct the Map resolution concerns the projection of areas and does not alter political boundaries, the debate it has generated reaffirms a broader principle: the choice of representation is never entirely neutral. When an international institution adopts a world map, it does more than communicate geography. It produces a visual framework within which perceptions of place, importance, proximity and scale take shape.

The security significance of maps becomes more pronounced when they are used to define theatres of operations, strategic depth, distances, chokepoints and maritime corridors. A distinction must nevertheless be maintained between general world maps and specialised operational maps. Armed forces and shipping companies do not calculate distances or ranges from a classroom wall map; they use geodetic systems, projections and data designed for the task. General maps nonetheless retain an influence at the broader strategic level because they help shape how the public and elites perceive the scale and complexity of distant theatres. Depicting Africa and Latin America in their true relative proportions draws attention to the extent of their borders, the length of their coastlines, the multiplicity of corridors and cables crossing them, and the difficulty of managing threats across vast spaces. Visual correction can therefore prompt a reconsideration of security questions, while precise operational calculations remain essential.

Economically and geoeconomically, companies do not price assets or sovereign risk according to how a continent appears on a general map. Investment decisions are governed by returns, stability, infrastructure and regulation. Maps can, however, influence the stage preceding a decision: how attention is distributed, opportunities are framed and priorities for further investigation are established. Showing the actual spatial scale of African markets, the length of transport corridors and the extent of resource basins gives decision-makers a more realistic picture of both costs and opportunities. Equal-area projections can, in this sense, support a geoeconomic narrative that highlights the importance of African ports, cross-border energy networks, critical mineral regions and the need for extensive continental infrastructure. A map does not move capital directly, but it may reorganise the visual framework within which thinking about capital flows begins.

The initiative by countries of the Global South should therefore neither be reduced to dissatisfaction with an old geometrical distortion nor overstated as an immediate material transformation of the international order. Its real value lies in engaging with one of the less visible dimensions of power: the production of images, standards and knowledge. Restoring true relative areas on paper does not compel financial or security institutions to change their policies. It does give countries of the South a stronger platform from which to challenge reductive representations of their resources, societies and territories. When this challenge is coupled with better data, more effective regional institutions and clear policies on investment, transport and integration, visual correction can move beyond symbolism and help build political and geoeconomic influence more commensurate with these countries’ actual weight.

Africa, Latin America and South Asia have long experienced political marginalisation intertwined with patterns of visual representation shaped during periods of European dominance. The Mercator projection was not originally designed to diminish the South; it met a specific navigational need. Its subsequent proliferation as the default world map, alongside European colonial expansion, nevertheless gave its geometrical distortions a political meaning beyond their technical function. Covering more than thirty million square kilometres, Africa is not only approximately fourteen times the size of Greenland: its area can also accommodate the combined land areas of the United States, China, India, Japan, Mexico and most of Europe. Yet an image that understates the difference between the continent and northern territories has become entrenched in public consciousness. The debate thus concerns the continued use of an unsuitable tool in educational and media settings that shape the public’s understanding of the world, rather than an accusation that a mathematical formula is itself colonial.

This visual pattern has helped make the North appear as a vast, coherent centre, while the South appears smaller and more fragmented. Imbalances in voting, finance or influence within international institutions cannot be attributed to maps; they are governed by more complex balances of power, institutional rules and material interests. The prevailing cartographic image has nonetheless aligned with these imbalances and given them a familiar, everyday form. Visual representation does not produce hegemony on its own but helps normalise it when it presents spatial disparities as natural facts. This is the basis of the concept of visual governance: power operates through the reference images that determine what appears central, what is seen as peripheral and what commands public attention, as well as through decisions and rules.

The Togolese initiative, backed by the African Union, seeks to reposition Africa from an object of representation to an actor negotiating the rules by which it is represented. African diplomacy selected an issue with low material costs but high symbolic value, around which it could build a broad coalition without requiring supporting states to make direct financial or security commitments. This made the resolution capable of attracting an overwhelming majority and turned it into an example of how multilateral institutions can be used to secure gains in norm-setting. Visual emancipation is no substitute for reform of the Security Council or international financial institutions. It is, however, an exercise in agenda-setting, consolidating a common African position and requiring other actors to engage with a conception of justice formulated by the continent’s own states.

This visual correction accompanies broader shifts in the balance of power, from the expanding role of BRICS and the growing weight of the Group of 77 to efforts towards trade integration under the African Continental Free Trade Area. In this context, the map becomes part of a wider contest over who has the authority to define the world, its problems and its priorities. The territories brought into clearer view contain markets with young populations, significant mineral and energy reserves, and coastlines and straits central to international trade. Changing the projection does not create this weight. It removes a visual distortion that has obscured some of its dimensions and allows countries of the South to use the new image to support an argument linking area, population, resources and location to demands for greater influence within global governance.

At its core, this step demonstrates that visual correction can serve as a negotiating instrument within a wider strategy to strengthen the Global South’s autonomy and its presence within multilateral institutions. The resolution does not itself reshape the international order, but it does reshape one of its most pervasive symbols: the image of the world from which learning and political imagination begin. If African states succeed in encouraging schools, publishers, organisations and digital platforms to adopt projections suited to their purpose, they will have secured a measurable gain in norm-setting. Whether that gain translates into more equitable political and economic representation will depend on their ability to connect epistemic sovereignty with institutional reform, negotiating coalitions and material projects that give the new narrative lasting force.

This diplomatic initiative emerged alongside a shift in the discourse of Global South countries, from a predominant focus on traditional development demands towards a claim to participate in defining standards and rules. Bringing the issue of maps before the General Assembly reflects a growing recognition that influence also begins with the ability to name a problem and frame the language in which others discuss it. The resolution is therefore no academic indulgence. It is a practical test of the African Group’s ability to consolidate its position and build an international majority around a priority originating on the continent. Success in this test does not yet amount to a redistribution of power within the international system but demonstrates that countries of the South can move from receiving standards to participating in their production.

This ambition rests on growing material weight. Countries of the South are located around several of the world’s most important maritime corridors and command significant shares of the energy, food and mineral supplies required by emerging industries. They also account for the greater part of population growth and encompass the bulk of the world’s emerging markets. The resolution adds none of these assets to the balance of power but brings them together within a more coherent visual and political framework. Here lies the map’s value as an instrument of soft power. It connects the discourse of epistemic justice with geopolitical realities and gives Africa a simple, widely accessible means of demonstrating that the periphery depicted on yesterday’s maps in fact occupies central positions in the security of strategic corridors, supply chains and the energy transition.

In geoeconomic terms, the most realistic effect of the Equal Earth map is to reframe the South’s strategic weight, rather than automatically reprice it. Investors do not revise their decisions simply because a continent appears larger on paper, but they do respond to narratives that define the scale of a market, the extent of connectivity between its regions and its need for roads, ports, energy networks and telecommunications. When Africa is shown in its correct relative proportions, the magnitude of the logistical challenge facing continental integration becomes clearer, as does the potential return from connecting these vast spaces. African governments can thus use the new map to present infrastructure, industrial and trade projects as components of a continental system, rather than scattered initiatives across a territory that appears smaller than it actually is.

This framing becomes more significant amid competition over critical minerals, green manufacturing and the diversification of supply chains away from traditional centres of concentration. Countries in Africa, Latin America and Asia possess resources and production locations that place them at the centre of this competition. Turning resources into influence, however, requires industrial policy, finance, cross-border transport and negotiating capacity. An equal-area map can support this agenda by highlighting the spatial reach of resources and markets, but it cannot ensure that investors move from extraction towards the development of local value chains. The strategic opportunity lies in using visual correction to frame the case for partners to align their investments with the true scale of the continent’s needs and opportunities and to move partnerships beyond raw material extraction towards infrastructure, technology and manufacturing development.

In this sense, the South’s success in securing the resolution’s adoption represents a calculated demonstration of soft power and could prepare the ground for a broader geoeconomic reassessment if followed by coordinated policies. The symbolic gain gives Africa greater visibility but must be translated into action through reliable African data, thematic maps of resources and trade, projects that connect the continent, and a unified negotiating position. Only then can a change in the image become part of a change in the terms on which others engage with Africa. If the resolution remains confined to replacing one classroom poster with another, its achievement will remain educational and symbolic. The difference between these outcomes will be determined by the ability of countries of the South to incorporate the map into a wider institutional and material strategy.

The vote sent a clear political signal but did not reveal a simple division between the South and the West. The resolution received the support of 164 countries, including Western powers such as France, the United Kingdom and Germany, alongside China, Russia, India and most countries in Africa, Latin America and Asia. The United States alone voted against, while six states, mostly in Eastern Europe, abstained in a context partly shaped by concerns about the depiction of disputed territories on certain maps circulating outside the UN framework. The result therefore demonstrates Africa’s success in building a coalition across traditional divides more clearly than it reveals a southern bloc confronting a united Western bloc. Nevertheless, the United States’ solitary opposition remains analytically significant, placing Washington’s handling of the initiative in direct contrast with France’s more flexible response.

The United States justified its position by arguing that the resolution advanced an ideological agenda and diverted the UN’s attention from more pressing questions of peace, prosperity and international relations. This rationale reflects opposition to broadening the concepts of historical and epistemic justice within the organisation’s work, while revealing US sensitivity to the transformation of symbols and standards into new arenas of political reassessment. Strategically, this opposition can be read as concern over the accumulation of norm-setting precedents led by countries of the South. To link it directly to a demonstrated US fear of Security Council or International Monetary Fund reform, however, would go beyond the available evidence. More significantly, Washington chose to resist the initiative rather than accommodate it, incurring a relatively high diplomatic cost over an issue whose scientific and educational purpose commanded broad international agreement.

France chose the opposite course, embracing symbolic adaptation. In addition to supporting the resolution, the French Foreign Ministry announced that its general-purpose maps would move from Mercator to the Eckert IV projection, an equal-area projection comparable in purpose to Equal Earth, while stressing that the choice of projection should depend on its intended use. This distinction matters. Paris did not endorse a single map as correct in every context. It accepted the principle advanced by the African initiative: maps used for education and public understanding should not rely on a navigational projection when comparing the sizes of continents. Politically, this position gave France an opportunity to present itself as a Western power willing to acknowledge and adapt to an initiative originating in Africa, rather than defend a symbol historically associated with the colonial era.

French flexibility can also be understood in the context of Paris’s efforts to recast its relationship with Africa following the decline of its political and military influence in the Sahel and the rise of opposition to the colonial legacy. There is insufficient evidence to treat the vote as a direct French overture aimed at restoring influence, but it is consistent with French diplomacy’s need for language more sensitive to questions of memory and representation. Abandoning Mercator in general-purpose maps carries limited costs, while the resolution offers Paris a symbolic gain and an opportunity to signal its willingness to listen to an African-led demand. France is thus engaging with history pragmatically: acknowledging its relationship with cartography while preventing that relationship from becoming an obstacle to diplomatic repositioning.

The comparison between Washington and Paris consequently reveals differences within the West over how to respond to the rise of agendas led by countries of the South. The United States chose rhetorical confrontation and rejected the inclusion of epistemic justice in the resolution, whereas France preferred accommodation, adaptation and the diplomatic opportunities offered by the shift. This does not mean that Paris has abandoned its traditional interests or that Washington is defending Mercator for its own sake. The two states assessed the political cost of the symbol differently. This is the issue’s deeper geopolitical significance: a map that changes none of the world’s borders has nevertheless tested the major powers’ willingness to accept standards of representation originating in Africa. It has exposed which powers regard a symbolic concession as an opportunity to reposition themselves and which see it as an unwelcome opening for a broader agenda of revision within the international order.

The adoption of the Correct the Map resolution is therefore an important milestone that extends beyond cartographic adjustment without amounting to a reconfiguration of material power. Led by Togo and supported by the African Union, African states have brought an issue long confined to academic criticism and civil society into the heart of the General Assembly, securing overwhelming international support. In doing so, the continent has won recognition that the way it is represented is not a purely technical matter and that depictions of geography can carry epistemic and political consequences. The vote has also shown that the Global South can build norm-setting coalitions that extend beyond its traditional boundaries and that contestation over the international order concerns the concepts and symbols that confer legitimacy on it as well as seats and resources.

This initiative comes as countries of the South increasingly demand equal standing and reform of multilateral institutions. Changing the map alone will neither redirect investment nor alter the balance of global security. It does, however, remove a layer of visual distortion and give Africa a new instrument with which to define itself and its interests. The resolution’s ultimate strategic value will depend on what follows the vote: the extent to which schools, publishers, organisations and digital platforms adopt equal-area projections, and the ability of African states to connect this gain with the production of their own data and maps and with projects for integration, infrastructure and industrialisation. Maps, which historically served navigation and imperial administration, could then become instruments of narrative autonomy. Their contribution would be to help the South present its existing sources of power at the scale and in the position they warrant.

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