The United Nations has recently voted to adopt a new world map. The UN now supports the Equal Earth map which tries to represent the relative size of continents and countries more accurately.
If you compare the Equal Earth projection with the traditional Mercator projection (I’ll explain these later in the episode, don’t worry), you will notice that Africa is much larger, Greenland and Antarctica are much smaller, and some countries have shifted slightly in their position.
So, why did the UN vote to change the map? And was the old map actually wrong?
Today, we're going to look at why our maps of the world look the way they do, why the famous Mercator projection has some major problems, what Equal Earth does differently, and whether it is possible to create a completely accurate map of the world.
And we will practice you English listening comprehension and learn some new vocabulary along the way!
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TRANSCRIPT - https://thinkinginenglish.blog/2026/10/12/409-the-world-map-is-changing-english-vocabulary-lesson/
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