Since the 16th century, the world has been drawn in a way that quietly diminished entire continents — not out of malice, but out of the practical demands of maritime navigation. On Friday, 164 nations at the United Nations voted to endorse the Equal Earth projection, a map that renders continents in their true proportions, correcting a distortion that has shaped classrooms, newsrooms, and collective imagination for half a millennium. The vote, sponsored by Togo and backed by the African Union, carries no legal force — only the weight of a global acknowledgment that how we picture the world is