Most of us recognise the Mercator projection—the rectangular world map that lines classrooms, textbooks, and even boardrooms.

Created in 1569 by Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator for navigational purposes, it was revolutionary in its time. It preserved accurate angles and directions for sailors, but at a cost: countries near the poles became wildly distorted in size.

Greenland, for example, appears to rival Africa in area, even though Africa is 14 times larger. Europe and North America look oversized compared to the Global South, reinforcing a geopolitical bias that persists to this day.

The campaign points out that “North on top” is not a geographical law , but rather a convention shaped by centuries of Eurocentrism. Medieval Christian and early Islamic maps often placed the East at the top—orienting the world differently, quite literally.

This choice shapes perceptions: what looks bigger, feels more important. The over-representation of Europe and North America subtly influences how people understand global power, trade, and politics.

The Gall-Peters projection, shown as an alternative, attempts to address this distortion by preserving area rather than shape. On a Gall-Peters map, Africa looms large, while Europe shrinks to a more proportionate size. This view challenges long-standing visual biases ingrained by the Mercator projection.

The visuals also highlight that even orientation is a choice—some modern maps centre the Pacific , not Europe, or flip north and south. One graphic even imagines a map from the perspective of ocean-dwelling creatures, emphasising that 70% of Earth’s surface is ocean, not land.