India, Sept. 7 -- The world map has changed. Yes, quite literally. But don't worry, the political borders remain the same. The United Nations (UN) voted to adopt a new kind of world map, Equal Earth, that reflects the actual size of landmasses, continents, and countries more accurately than the widely used Mercator map.

It is a historic decision, indeed. The Mercator map was the standard world map for close to four centuries. But critics said it failed to depict the size of continents and countries correctly, especially the continent of Africa. The Equal Earth map has more accurate contours, meaning that we can now easily estimate the comparative sizes of continents and countries from the map alone.

Difference between a Mercator map and...