France foreign ministry to drop Mercator maps

The French foreign ministry said Friday it plans to stop using the traditional Mercator projection in its world maps, backing an African-led push for geographical representations that better reflect continents' actual surface areas.

Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said in a speech at the Sorbonne University in Paris that the ministry would use map representations “tailored to specific uses” and more in line with recommendations from cartographers and scientists.

France is co-sponsoring a text to be put forward at the United Nations by Togo and the African Union. The text encourages international organisations and states to use other map projections, including Equal Earth.

Barrot said the Mercator projection gives disproportionate visual prominence to the United States, Russia, China and Greenland compared with Africa, Latin America and southeast Asia. He said Greenland appears almost as large as Africa on such maps, while Africa is actually about 14 times larger.

The Mercator projection was designed for maritime navigation by Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator in 1569. It preserves shapes and angles but distorts relative sizes, especially by inflating northern regions and compressing equatorial ones.