Disclaimer: This article is based on actual news from the real world – honestly! However, it has been sprinkled with a healthy dose of satire.
Turns out the map on your classroom wall has been lying harder than a freshman explaining why his essay smells like tequila. For centuries, the Mercator projection has made Greenland look like it could sit on Africa’s face and tell it to shut up, when in reality Africa could fit 14 Greenlands inside it and still have room left over for Canada’s inferiority complex.
Current maps have Africa so small that it can fit into two human hands. (jjvallee/depositphotos)
A coalition of African advocacy groups recently looked at the map, squinted, and said, “Wait a damn second.” They launched a campaign called Change the Map, which quickly went viral because nothing says “internet content” like arguing about geography with strangers who know absolutely nothing about geography. Their demand? Swap out the centuries-old Mercator projection for the new Equal Earth map, which actually makes Africa look like the landmass equivalent of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson instead of Danny DeVito.
The African Union has officially endorsed the campaign, which is basically the geopolitical equivalent of changing your Facebook relationship status from “it’s complicated” to “in a deeply committed cartographic partnership.”
The Mercator projection, created in 1569 by Flemish cartographer Gerardus “Definitely Didn’t Have Africa On His Vision Board” Mercator, was designed for European sailors to draw straight lines across oceans. Which is great if you’re Magellan trying to drunkenly doodle your way to the Spice Islands, but less great if you’re Africa constantly being mistaken for “slightly larger Texas.”
Google Maps technically fixed this in 2018 by switching to a 3D globe, but only on desktop, because apparently, mobile phones are too fragile to handle the truth about Africa. The default view is still Mercator, meaning millions of kids are growing up believing Madagascar is the same size as their uncle’s backyard pool. The campaign has asked Google to fix this, but Google says it’s currently too busy trying to convince people that YouTube Premium is a real product.
Feel shame, Greenland… feel shame. (neilrkaye/x.com)
Geographers, meanwhile, are mostly shrugging and muttering, “Took you long enough.” Mark Monmonier, a Syracuse professor, politely called the Mercator “obsolete,” which is academic-speak meaning “for the love of god, stop using this thing.” He also noted that if you really want to compare continents, you should use bar graphs, because nothing screams “the majesty of Africa” like a PowerPoint slide your boss made at 3 a.m. using Comic Sans.
Critics argue that the shrunken portrayal of Africa minimizes its importance in the world economy, politics, and memes. Proponents of the Equal Earth map say correcting the distortion could help kids realize Africa isn’t just lions, Wakanda, and that one time Mufasa died. But good luck with that.
In conclusion: Greenland, we’re breaking up. You were never that big, and Africa deserves the accurate cartographic glow-up it’s been denied since the Renaissance.
This story is based on fully factual news, but if we got it wrong, blame these guys, we’re just here to make it funny.
