UN map vote reignites India-Pakistan row over Kashmir

The UN General Assembly on Friday, 4 September, adopted a resolution encouraging greater use of equal area map projections, which preserve the relative sizes of land masses more accurately than the widely used Mercator projection. The measure passed by 164 votes to one, with six abstentions. The United States voted against it.

The resolution, titled Correct the Map, grew from a campaign led by African countries to address distortions that make regions near the equator appear smaller relative to countries farther north and south.

India supported the measure but immediately sought to narrow how the vote should be interpreted.

Raghoo Puri, a first secretary at India’s permanent mission to the UN, said New Delhi viewed the resolution as backing greater consideration of equal area projections, “not as endorsing the Equal Earth projection, or any other specific map projection.”

India’s Ministry of External Affairs later said the resolution did not deal with political cartography, international boundaries, disputed territories or place names. It added that India’s sovereign territory, including the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, must be shown according to India’s official map.

Pakistan rejected that position on Monday.

Its Foreign Office spokesperson Sajjad Haider Khan called India’s assertions baseless and said unilateral claims could not alter Pakistan’s position that Jammu and Kashmir remains an internationally disputed territory. Islamabad has long maintained that the region’s final status should be determined in accordance with UN Security Council resolutions.

India rejects that characterization and considers Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh integral parts of the country.

The dispute risks obscuring what the UN resolution actually did.

Equal area projections address a mathematical problem created when the curved surface of the Earth is shown on a flat sheet or screen. The Mercator projection, developed in the 16th century for navigation, preserves angles but greatly enlarges areas near the poles. Greenland, for example, can appear comparable in size to Africa even though Africa is roughly 14 times larger.

The Equal Earth projection, developed in 2018, is one attempt to correct those distortions while retaining a visually familiar world map.

But the UN resolution does not settle political boundaries or determine sovereignty over disputed territory. India’s explanation of vote is also significant because it explicitly rejected treating the resolution as formal endorsement of one particular projection.