The Mercator projection, a centuries-old map style from the age of sail, still prevails in the internet age. Here’s what the African Union wants to use instead.

Organizers behind the Correct The Map campaign say the Mercator map's shrinking of Africa minimizes the continent's global ...

Several African nations have begun replacing Mercator maps in schools with alternatives. The current campaign is "actively ...

As a result, Mercator’s map becomes useless at high latitudes due to the excessive distortion. But take a look at an Ordnance Survey of Ireland map: it is a Transverse Mercator Projection, based ...

The African Union's recent support for alternatives to the Mercator projection challenges historical cartographic distortions ...

The flat map, created by Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator in 1569 is still used today by Google Maps. This map from circa 1798 was charted according to the Mercator’s projection.

Mercator’s map was so useful to sailors that its popularity eventually caught on with landlubbers. Today, it’s still the most often used map projection in the world.

In world maps drawn using Mercator’s projection, the one that served as the standard in atlases for centuries, the equatorial areas pan out fine, but the map starts to distend enormously as it ...

The True Size map points out that Mercator projections suggest Greenland is roughly the same size size as Africa. The mind-blowing reality is that the continent is 14.5 times bigger than Greenland.

And the map is still commonly used today. In fact, there was probably a version of it on your classroom wall and even Google Maps uses a close variant of the Mercator projection.