For five centuries, a map drawn in 1569 has quietly taught the world to see Africa as a footnote — roughly the size of Greenland, when in truth it dwarfs that island fourteen times over. The United Nations' endorsement of the Equal Earth projection is not a cartographic adjustment but a philosophical reckoning: a recognition that images precede arguments, and that what a child sees in an encyclopedia shapes what an adult believes is possible. To correct the map is to begin correcting the story, and the story has always been about who gets to appear large in the world's imagination.