World backs fairer maps — US casts lone vote against The UN General Assembly voted 164-1 to encourage governments, schools and tech companies to use map projections that represent the relative size of continents more accurately, UN News reported. The resolution takes aim at the centuries-old Mercator projection, which dramatically enlarges landmasses farther from the Equator. Africa is about 14 times larger than #Greenland , yet the two can appear roughly comparable on Mercator maps.