World map

How do you take our round planet and put it onto a flat piece of paper? His name was Gerardus Mercator.

In 1569, he published a world map that would become known as the Mercator projection.

It was designed for sailors, and it was extraordinarily useful.

It also changed the way people looked at the world.

After all, one person's frontier is another person's front door.

And today we're doing something slightly different because instead of following one traveler, we're looking at the thing every single traveler on this show has needed: a map.

Where do our world maps actually come from? When was the first one made? Are our maps racist? And why did the UN just pass a resolution urging governments and organizations to move away from the Mercator projection?

Or to put it another way, today we're asking whether the guy who drew the map that was probably on your classroom wall, well, does he owe Africa an apology?

We're unpacking a genuinely fascinating article from A Bus on a Dusty Road by Anita L. Hummel.

It's called Spice Geopolitics: How Black Pepper and Cinnamon Drew the World Map.

We're going to trace this unbelievable history of how empires partitioned the globe, engineered these massive corporate monopolies, and built vast navies, all just to secure exclusive rights to the things you, uh, you sprinkle on your oatmeal.

Yeah, it is a story of extreme wealth, absolute deception, and these ruthless corporate tactics that honestly make today's tech giants look incredibly tame by comparison.

Tony, I was doing

a little bit of work last night with the Globe, the World Map.

You get a ruler out, and I drew a line between the Fremantle Football Club and the Brisbane Football Club.

They actually couldn't be two clubs further apart.

He says, "Bias comes especially in the questions he posi- he poses and in the type of cate-category he uses," referring to the historians, "where indeed bias is especially hard to track down because it is hard to suspect the very terms one uses, which seem so innocently neutral." So the environment, you know, has its own, you know, uh, impact on how the historian is writing the, the book.

You know, I think a very good example I would like to, you know, share today is this whole, uh, new world map.

You know, I remember I talked about this a long time ago when I was in, uh, Vancouver.

Um, [clears throat] you know, if you, uh, look at the world map which was-- has been common, we have been looking at it from our school days till now wherever you go, and this has been there for four centuries.

But if you look at it, it has this Western bias in it.

It gives an impression that Northern Hemisphere nations are larger than they are, and therefore subtly reinforcing perceptions of where global s-strength lies.

Now who is that? That's the United States of America.

Because the size of US became [chuckles] reduced in, in the, in the new, uh, map that they have come, come up with.

It's not really a bulletin board, but it has pins in it.

It's like the world map.

Oh, yeah.

One of my favorite features they put in the No- or the r- r- or in the Jefferson Health Training Complex a few years ago.

Well, I guess at that point it w- or whatever.

[laughs] It's the world map, and they have pins on the countries where all their players are from, and the state, and states in the, i- in the United States.

But I, I love that.

I think it's pretty cool.

They have actually voted.

But the essence of the story is UN to vote on adopting new world map that shows Africa's true scale.

Togo-sponsored resolution calls to phase out traditional map that depicts continent as similar size to Greenland, which is a joke in itself.

The UN General Assembly voted on Friday on a resolution for the world, which was 164 to 1.

Google Maps.

during the first quarter of next year to map out the new implementation of the resolution.

Dossi said, to those who say, why now? I say, why not? When we look at the world map, it's time for us to change the narratives.

He added, it is time for us in Africa to take responsibility to change what we can change ourselves, which is what we do here, changing narratives.

there's a

world map vote

that happened? Yeah.

I didn't even know that.

We having a big party on one, so three, nine.

Don't forget 16th September, World Map Weekway Day.

It is a Friday.

It is a Friday.