Togo has launched a diplomatic campaign to persuade United Nations member states to abandon the Mercator projection — the world map used in the vast majority of atlases and classrooms — in favour of a more accurate representation of the Earth's continents. The initiative, backed by the African Union, aims to bring a resolution to a vote at the UN General Assembly in September 2026.

The Mercator projection, created by Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator and first presented in the 16th century, was originally designed as a navigation tool for sailors. While effective for that purpose, it significantly distorts the relative size of landmasses: the further a territory is from the equator, the larger it appears on the map. As a result, Greenland appears roughly as large as Africa, even though Africa is in reality about 14 times bigger. Wealthy northern nations similarly appear far larger than they are, while equatorial and southern regions — including most of Africa — are visually diminished.

Togo's foreign minister described the continent's depiction on standard maps as