Size Matters

There are few things more awkward than discovering that one has been looking rather larger than one really is. The United Nations has now arranged this delicate experience for several countries simultaneously. Its General Assembly voted 164 to one to encourage the use of the Equal Earth map, which represents the relative areas of countries and continents more accurately than the familiar Mercator projection.

Britain voted for it.

Australia voted for it.

The United States voted against.

One should immediately point out that the American objection had nothing to do with its diminished appearance. The US representative regarded the exercise as a distraction from the proper business of the United Nations and objected to the language of cognitive justice and "memorial reparation" surrounding it.

Perfectly clear.

The fact that the only country voting against the map was also among those about to look smaller is simply one of those social accidents one pretends not to notice. Africa, by contrast, has had an excellent fitting.

For centuries it has appeared on the standard world map looking surprisingly modest beside Greenland. The difficulty is that Africa is actually about fourteen times larger. This must be particularly uncomfortable for Greenland, which has enjoyed a very good position at the table for several hundred years and has now been asked to move.

Britain has also benefited from Mercator. The projection enlarges areas progressively as they approach the poles. Britain, northern Europe, Russia, Canada and Greenland have consequently spent centuries occupying rather more space than their acreage strictly justified. It is the cartographic equivalent of knowing the photographer.

Australia has been flattered too, although being closer to the equator means our advantage has been less extravagant. On Equal Earth we remain substantial, recognisable and approximately where we were before. Our shape changes slightly. This is unavoidable. A spherical planet cannot be pressed flat without something giving way, rather as anyone who has ever tried to close an overpacked suitcase will understand.

The Equal Earth projection chooses to preserve area. Mercator chooses angles and local shapes, which is why navigators still find it useful. There is no perfect flat map of a round world. There are merely different compromises.

Then there is the delicate question of Australia being upside down. We aren't.

The conventional Equal Earth map still places north at the top, so Australia continues its long engagement beneath everybody else. But north-up is merely convention. There is no astronomical reason Britain must sit above Australia. Indeed, the Equal Earth people offer an Oceania-centred, south-up version. It is magnificent. Australia rises to the top of the world. Britain descends. Europe finds itself in rather unfamiliar surroundings. The United States remains visible, although perhaps not quite where it expected the maître d' to put it.

The politics behind the UN resolution are more serious. African governments have argued that consistently depicting their continent as smaller than it really is affects how the rest of the world imagines its population, resources, development requirements and economic potential. They have a point. A map cannot make Africa richer, safer or more influential. It can at least refrain from making it smaller.

France supported the change. Britain supported it. Australia supported it. Most of the world supported it.

America did not.

Again, we must stress that there is absolutely no evidence that this had anything to do with size.

But after years spent being told that everything was going to be the biggliest, greatest and most magnificent anyone had ever seen, it is perhaps unfortunate timing for someone to turn up with a ruler.