Every map starts with the same lie: The earth is flat. The globe isn’t a portable, affordable, or even satisfying way to look at the world, so these exaggerations are necessary. However, mapmakers ...

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

In classrooms, offices, and libraries across the United States, one world map appears again and again: the Mercator projection. Its familiarity makes it feel authoritative, even though it was never ...

The African Union has joined a growing campaign to challenge centuries of cartographic distortion that has long diminished Africa’s true scale on world maps. The bloc of 55 nations recently endorsed ...