The 1569 Mercator map didn’t merely misrepresent Africa’s dimension—it mutilated its dignity and incapacitated its future. From the second Gerardus Mercator shrank Africa on paper, the continent was intentionally diminished within the eyes of the world.
And, 300 years later, on the Berlin Convention of 1884, the very powers who first made Africa look small went additional: they divided it into small, weak states beneath their management, designed to feed their industrialisation drive in Europe.
Now, greater than 500 years later, the African Union has begun reclaiming fact by endorsing the Equal Earth projection, a map that lastly restores Africa’s true scale. This isn’t nearly cartographic accuracy—it’s an act of liberation. It’s about tearing down the lies that shrank us on paper, then broke us aside in apply.
Cartographic Colonialism
The Mercator projection was by no means impartial. It was designed for conquest. It bloated Europe by over 300% whereas crushing Africa into irrelevance. “It would appear to be only a map, however in actuality, it’s not,” AU Deputy Chairperson Selma Malika Haddadi warned, noting how its distortion made 55 African nations look marginal.
The deception went past ink. The rulers and compasses of 1884 carved kingdoms, commerce routes, and ecosystems into fragments. Immediately, 60% of Africa’s borders are nonetheless straight strains—scars of Berlin’s vanity—scars which have spawned wars from the Sahel to the Horn of Africa.
Reclaiming Scale, Restoring Dignity
The Equal Earth projection is greater than geography—it’s justice. It restores Africa as the large it actually is: huge, wealthy, and unshrinkable. However a map correction alone won’t free us. True liberation calls for tearing down the colonial borders that also prohibit our alternatives and choke our prosperity.
Consider the absurdity: in 2025, vehicles nonetheless queue for 72 hours at synthetic checkpoints whereas Africans are nonetheless denied entry to African international locations, the place Europeans visiting don’t require entry visas. How can the African Continental Free Commerce Space thrive on such fractured foundations?
A New Cartography, A New Urgency
The AU’s endorsement of Equal Earth echoes the heartbeat of Agenda 2063: The Africa We Need—borderless, entire, and robust. However maps alone won’t save us. Phrases alone won’t unite us. Motion should. Urgency should. Will should. We are able to and we should!
The borders drawn in 1884 weren’t drawn for Africans; they had been drawn towards us. If the Mercator map falls, so too should Berlin’s borders.
On the Africa Prosperity Community, we’re dedicated to mobilising Africa’s personal sector—the entrepreneurs, the builders, the wealth creators—to personal and drive this historic job. Governments could signal protocols, however solely Africa’s folks (over 1.5 billion of us in Africa and throughout the globe), powered by enterprise, can lastly dismantle these invisible chains and make Africa actually borderless.
The Name
For over 60 years, our leaders have spoken of African unity. Nkrumah known as for it. Nyerere warned of the price of delay. Generations have dreamed it.
The time has come for Africa to reclaim its precise dimension—on the map and on the planet—and to erase the borders that constrain us from changing into the financial energy we ought to be.
The Mercator map shrank Africa. The Berlin Convention divided Africa. The Equal Earth projection restores Africa. However solely Africans can liberate Africa.
Allow us to not appropriate the map solely. Allow us to appropriate historical past. Allow us to make Africa borderless—now.
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The writer is the Founder and Government Chairman of the Africa Prosperity Community, organisers of the annual Africa Prosperity Dialogues in Accra and the World Africa Discussion board in New York. He’s additionally the Senior Associate of Africa Authorized Associates (ALPi Ghana), a Pan-African company regulation agency with workplaces in 9 African international locations.
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DISCLAIMER: The Views, Feedback, Opinions, Contributions and Statements made by Readers and Contributors on this platform don’t essentially characterize the views or coverage of Multimedia Group Restricted.
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