African nations are calling for the world map to be redrawn to show the “greatness of the continent”. The African Union has ...

Advocacy groups in Africa have launched a campaign to replace the Mercator map, which distorts Africa's size by making it ...

The Mercator projection, a centuries-old map style from the age of sail, still prevails in the internet age. Here’s what the ...

The African Union has backed a campaign to end the use by governments and international organizations of the 16th-century ...

For centuries, the familiar Mercator world map has quietly distorted Africa's size and significance. Now, a coalition of ...

A growing campaign backed by the African Union is urging schools and organizations to replace the Mercator projection with a ...

Olly Mann and The Week delve behind the headlines and debate what really matters from the past seven days.

Given its distortions, why has the Mercator projection continued to dominate classrooms, atlases and even digital maps for centuries?

"Every world map is distorted in some respect," Matthew Edney, a professor of geography and the history of cartography at the University of Southern Maine, told Live Science in an email. Related: ...