The United Nations General Assembly has overwhelmingly backed a resolution calling for wider use of a world map that more accurately reflects the true size of Africa and other regions, voting 164 to one with six abstentions.

The United States was the only country to vote against the resolution. Six countries abstained.

The "Correct the Map" resolution was introduced by Togo on behalf of the African Group, the 54 African member states at the UN, and co-sponsored by the Bahamas and France. It promotes the Equal Earth projection as an alternative to the centuries-old Mercator map.

The resolution is not legally binding. It does not require countries or institutions to abandon the Mercator projection, which it acknowledges remains fully suited for maritime and aerial navigation. Instead, it encourages governments, international organisations, educational institutions and technology companies to adopt equal-area projections such as Equal Earth.

The Mercator map was created in 1569 by Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator, primarily as a navigation tool. It preserves the shape of land masses but distorts their relative size, making regions closer to the poles appear significantly larger than they are. For instance, it makes Greenland appear roughly the same size as Africa, even though Africa is approximately 14 times larger.

The Equal Earth projection was developed in 2018 by cartographers Tom Patterson, Bernhard Jenny and Bojan Savcic. It is designed to provide a more proportionally accurate picture of the world's land masses, though their shapes are somewhat distorted.

Ahead of Friday's vote, Togolese Foreign Minister Robert Dussey said maps carry consequences far beyond geography.

"A fair world begins with a fair map," he said.

"Maps shape our understanding of the world. They guide education, nourish the imagination, and influence collective perceptions," Dussey said at a UN briefing. "A map is never neutral. It shapes perceptions, influences how the place of peoples and continents in the world is understood."

Dussey linked the campaign to wider African efforts to confront colonial-era legacies, while stating it was not an attack on Europe or any other civilisation. He said Togo hopes to update its own school geography materials by the end of the year.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot, whose country co-sponsored the resolution, announced that France would abandon the Mercator projection. Speaking at the Sorbonne University in Paris, he said the French foreign ministry would adopt map representations "more faithful to actual surface areas and in line with the recommendations of cartographers and scientists."

"The United States, Russia and China take on a disproportionate visual prominence compared to Africa, Latin America or southeast Asia," Barrot said. "Distortions eventually take root in perceptions," he added, saying "the time has come to correct them."

"Changing the map obviously doesn't change the world. But correcting a representation that distorts it is already an act of truth," he said.

The United States strongly opposed the initiative. Yaryna Ferencevych, deputy US representative to the UN Economic and Social Council, said the resolution distracted from more pressing global issues.

"Instead of focusing on genuine problems of international peace, prosperity, or good relations, this body is debating map projects from the 16th Century, and their role in promoting reparations and 'cognitive justice'," she said.

"Resolutions like this and the ideological agenda they promote are barnacles on our work here, and the reason this institution is losing its credibility," her statement read.

The African Union welcomed the vote. In a statement, it said the resolution "promotes equal-area maps like Equal Earth across classrooms, media, and international institutions, ensuring the world map finally reflects Africa's true scale, weight, and place in the world."

Moky Makura, executive director of the advocacy organisation Africa No Filter, which is involved in the Correct the Map campaign, called the vote a beginning rather than an end.

"We want to see accurate maps in schools, textbooks, newsrooms, businesses and on the digital platforms billions of people use every day," Makura said. "If we got something as basic as Africa's size wrong for this long, what else about Africa have we simply accepted without questioning? Africa doesn't need to be made bigger. It needs to be seen accurately."

Tom Patterson, one of the creators of the Equal Earth projection, expressed surprise at the outcome. "Wow. When we created the Equal Earth projection in 2018, we never imagined this," he wrote on social media.