The Equal Earth Project

The UN has voted to change the official world map to show the true size of Africa. The Mercator map (the old map we used) was designed in 1569 by the Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator to help European explorers navigate across the world. On these maps, Africa is the same size as Greenland, which is not true. Africa is 14 times larger than Greenland! Online campaign group #CorrectTheMap said: "You could fit the United States, China, India, Japan, Mexico and much of Europe into Africa and still have land to spare." This new map will be called the "Equal Earth Project" and will be phased into Australian classrooms.