T
164-1.
That’s the vote tally at the United Nations to adopt a new world map, the “Equal Earth projection”, that corrects distortions in the centuries-old and well-known Mercator projection. The Mercator map was prized during the era of European imperialism. (This is also a subject in a great episode of The West Wing.) The proposed new map more accurately portrays the relative size of continents.
You can probably guess the only nation that voted against it. Yes, it was the United States, which called this “a radical ideological project.” Perhaps the new map should depict us as an island standing alone against the world’s nations. If you really want to find a radical ideological project in mapping, just look at Trump’s “Lake America” designation.
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