The UN Equal Earth Map Resolution: The MENA Aviation Impact

“A fair world begins with a fair map.” With these words, Togolese Foreign Minister Robert Dussey paved the way for the UN General Assembly resolution on 4 September 2026, which encourages the use of more accurate maps to represent the true size of continents.

Although the resolution is not related to air navigation, it raises an important question for the civil aviation industry in the Arab world: does the way we view the map affect how we understand the aviation network connecting North Africa to the Middle East?

Following an African campaign led by Togo to reduce the use of the Mercator map, the General Assembly approved the resolution by a vote of 164 to 1, with six abstentions.

The resolution encouraged governments, schools, institutions, and technology companies to use equal-area projections, such as Equal Earth, when the relative size of regions is important.

The resolution is non-binding and does not prohibit the use of the Mercator projection.

Mercator Map Distortion: Africa Appears Smaller

The issue raised by the resolution primarily relates to the Mercator projection, invented by cartographer Gerardus Mercator in 1569, which preserves directions and angles but exaggerates the sizes of regions the further they are from the equator.

Consequently, in many traditional world maps, Africa appears much smaller than it actually is compared to northern regions.

The Equal Earth projection presents a different picture, as it maintains the relative areas of continents and countries. Therefore, Africa appears at a size closer to its true area compared to Europe and North America.

For the Arab aviation sector, this issue is particularly important because North Africa and the Middle East are in one of the world’s most connected regions, linking Africa, Europe, and Asia.

ICAO’s View of the Middle East

The Arab aviation network stretches from Mauritania, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt in North Africa, across the Levant and the Gulf, reaching Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, the Sultanate of Oman, and others.

The International Civil Aviation Organization classifies the Arab region within more than one regional navigational airspace, including the Africa-Indian Ocean (AFI) region and the Middle East (MID) region, while the ICAO Middle East office covers 15 countries, including Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Qatar, the UAE, Oman, and Yemen.

The UN resolution does not mean that Arab airlines will redraw their flight paths or shorten them, nor that air navigation systems will transition from Mercator to Equal Earth. Civil aviation utilises specialised aeronautical charts, each serving a different function.

The Training and Assessment Manual for Air Traffic Controllers issued by ICAO in 2016 clarified that training for air navigation personnel includes understanding projections such as Lambert, Mercator, and Stereographic, and using each according to the chart’s characteristics and purpose.

Aeronautical charts used in the region itself may adopt the Lambert Conformal Conic projection. A document related to ICAO’s work in the Middle East displayed an aeronautical chart of the Sultanate of Oman and its surrounding region using this projection.

Why Mental Maps Matter

The potential change is not in the actual distance of the flight path, but rather in its mental image.

A flight connecting Cairo to Dubai will cover the same distance regardless of the map used, just as the journey between Casablanca and Doha will not become any shorter.

However, when Africa appears in its true size on an equal-area map, distances within the continent and between it and the Middle East become clearer, making the reader and traveller more aware that the Middle East is not geographically detached but rather a meeting point between the two continents.

From a commercial perspective, the map shifts here from a mere tool for displaying geography to an instrument for understanding the potential for air connectivity, as it provides a more accurate picture of the size of the African market.

This understanding of the continent’s vast scale directly affects the business models of Arab aviation hubs, which rely on transporting passengers between widely separated regions.

To translate this awareness into practice, the implications extend to tourism marketing strategies, which may be reformulated to highlight the importance of direct flights to shorten long-distance travel.

More importantly, it affects airlines’ investment and operational decisions, such as bolstering air fleets by purchasing long-haul aircraft capable of penetrating deep into Africa economically, thereby ensuring the development of a destination network that keeps pace with the sheer size of this market.

Aviation’s Technical Maps: Coordinates Over Projections

No flat map can represent the globe without distortion, which is why the aviation industry selects a projection according to the required task, whether it pertains to direction, angles, distance, or location.

Aeronautical charts and navigational information utilise various map projections depending on the purpose and geographical region, including Lambert, Mercator, and Polar Stereographic projections, which are documented within air navigation references associated with the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).

Furthermore, the concept of a flight path does not rely on the shape of the line we see on a world map. Air navigation deals with coordinates, geographic references, and specialised standards, including the World Geodetic System (WGS-84), which is used in international aviation.

The Equal Map Advantage

Therefore, the significance of the UN resolution for Arab civil aviation does not lie in swapping one map for another inside the cockpit. Rather, the true importance may reside in reconsidering the mental map we use to understand the Arab aviation market. When Africa appears at its true size, it becomes easier to conceptualise the vastness of its markets, the distances separating its capitals, and the scale of opportunities that air connectivity with it can provide.

For airlines in North Africa and the Middle East, the future question may not be which map to use. Instead, it is: does the current aviation network reflect the true geographical and economic size of the region it serves? The new map will not alter an aircraft’s route, relocate an airport, or cut an hour off flight time, but it may do something else: make us see North Africa, the Middle East, and Africa at the size they actually are, thereby prompting us to rethink their position within the global aviation map.