The United States has found itself increasingly isolated on the global stage after 164 countries backed a proposal at the United Nations to adopt a new way of representing the world map, with the US being the only country to vote against the change.
For Washington, the 164-1 vote at the UN may have concerned the representation of the world on a map. But the wider political message is harder to ignore: on several major international issues, the United States is increasingly finding itself without the level of support it once commanded.
The US also faced overwhelming opposition at the UN in December 2017 after Yemen and Türkiye introduced a resolution against then-President Donald Trump’s decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. The resolution received support from 128 countries, while nine countries, including the US and Israel, voted against it. The US has withdrawn completely from the World Health Organisation, while 193 countries remain members of the organisation. On January 7 this year, the US also withdrew from the International Solar Alliance, which is jointly led by India and France. The organisation has 125 member countries. Earlier this year, Trump signed a presidential memorandum directing the US to withdraw from 66 international organisations, arguing that they no longer serve American interests.
Washington’s growing distance from several international institutions has further fuelled the debate over its global influence. Among the organisations from which the US has withdrawn are the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, UN Population Fund, UN Conference on Trade and Development, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, International Renewable Energy Agency and International Union for Conservation of Nature. The developments have prompted a wider debate over whether the global order is gradually becoming less centred on Washington. The growing influence of India, the Global South and African nations, alongside differences between the US and traditional European partners such as Britain and France, has added to that debate.
The map currently familiar to much of the world is based on the Mercator projection, created in 1569 by European cartographer Gerardus Mercator. A new projection, developed by a team of cartographers in 2018, seeks to address these distortions. Greenland covers around 2.2 million square kilometres, while Africa has an area of approximately 30 million square kilometres, making the African continent around 14 times larger. Support from 164 countries, with only the US opposing the proposal, has been cited as an indication of Washington’s growing difficulty in securing support for its position on some global issues. In November 2024, a resolution calling for an end to the Israel-Hamas war received support from 14 members of the Security Council, while the US opposed it and used its veto. The same resolution was introduced again in June 2025. The voting figure remained 14-1. In September 2025, the US vetoed the resolution for the sixth time, again leaving the voting score at 14-1. A similar divide emerged in August 2020, when Washington proposed extending the UN arms embargo on Iran indefinitely. Only the US and the Dominican Republic voted in favour, while Russia, China, France, Germany and Britain were among 11 countries that were absent.
Because it goes beyond a disagreement over cartography, the vote has been described as significant. For African countries, the shift is therefore being viewed as an effort to present the world in a more proportionate manner.
Known as the Equal Earth Projection, it represents countries more accurately according to their relative area. Support for the new map reflects a wider demand, particularly from African countries, to move away from a representation of the world that they argue distorts the relative size of nations and reflects a historical European perspective. It was designed to assist European explorers with navigation and reflected the European understanding of the world at a time when colonial expansion was widespread. The Mercator projection exaggerates the size of areas closer to the poles while reducing the apparent size of regions near the Equator. This has resulted in significant differences between the way countries and continents appear on the map and their actual land area. The difference is particularly visible in the case of Africa and Greenland. Yet on the Mercator map, Greenland can appear comparable in size to Africa. Under the Equal Earth Projection, Africa appears substantially larger while Greenland is shown smaller. North America and Europe, which appeared around four times larger than their actual areas under the Mercator projection, are also represented closer to their true proportions. Russia and Canada similarly lose some of their exaggerated size, with Russia appearing smaller than Africa. India and South Asia, which were comparatively reduced in size on the old projection, also appear larger on the new map. The proposed change does not alter the actual size of countries, their territory or international borders. It only changes how the Earth’s surface is represented visually. The UN vote has also been presented as part of a broader discussion over the changing balance of influence within international institutions. The United States has faced similar situations at the UN Security Council in recent years. Russia, China and US allies France and Britain supported it, but Washington again exercised its veto.
In today’s episode of DNA, Rahul Sinha, Managing Editor of Zee News, conducted a detailed analysis of the development, examining what the UN vote means for the changing global order and Washington’s position within it.
