# The African Union has backed a campaign to end the use by governments and international organisations of the 16th-century Mercator map of the world in favour of one that more accurately displays Africa’s size. The map created for navigation, distorts continent sizes, enlarging areas near the poles like North America and Greenland while shrinking Africa and South America. The AU Commission deputy chairperson Selma Haddadi told Reuters, it creates the false impression that Africa was “marginal”, despite being the world’s second-largest continent by area, with over a billion people.
African Union urges adoption of world map showing continent’s true size