United Nations recommends the Equal Earth world map

I am delighted that last week (4th September 2026) the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) has voted to change their world map from the Mercator projection (created in 1569) to the Equal Earth projection aimed at "a more accurate representation" of the world: https://news.un.org/en/story/2026/09/1168284

The UN Equal Earth projection is here: https://www.un.org/geospatial/content/map-world-1

Equal Earth projection adopted by the United Nations 

I have long advocated for using an equal earth projection of the world. In the Oxford Handbook of Speech Development in Languages of the World (McLeod, 2026) I had bespoke maps made for each chapter (language/dialect) using this projection - and an explanation and comparison with the Mercator projection is outlined in chapter 1.

Here is a map from my book showing the distribution of Afrikaans:

 

Maps for The Oxford Handbook of Speech Development in Languages of the World

Today I met with Craig Poynter from the Spatial Analysis Network at Charles Sturt University to discuss the creation of maps for The Oxford Handbook of Speech Development in Languages of the World. There are ~80 chapters/languages so I am really pleased that we have such expertise available. I'm also pleased that Dr Carolyn Gregoric will be providing support for this task.

Craig Poynter and Carolyn Gregoric on MS Teams

We have beren discussing using the Equal Earth projection: https://www.esri.com/about/newsroom/arcuser/equal-earth/

We met again on 24th March - and decided that this format was what we were going to go with (Equal Area projection - Winkel Tripel).

Draft map for Afrikaans - Equal Area projection - Winkel Tripel