You can’t keep them out of the news but is Greenland the oversized prize… and what’s Africa’s beef?
Now unless you have just emerged from under an iceberg you’ll know that Donald Trump has been sizing up Greenland.
On account of it being the biggest island on the lot… although technically continents are just big islands.
Now parking that for now the unexpected reason why Africa have Greenland in their crosshairs is mapping.
And more precisely 16th-century Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator.
Which made him then a subject of the Spanish Netherlands.
And weren’t the Spanish busy conquering the continents of the world and mapping their new territories?
Bigging up the Old World
So we shouldn’t be surprised that they and other colonists bigged up their part in relation to their new subjects.
Which is how we got to where we are now with Africa measured the same size as Greenland.
Even though it’s 14 times the size.
But such creative drawing is now to be consigned to the 16th century after a Togo-led African charge got the UN to step in.
And adapt the ‘Correct the Map’ resolution, based we understand.
On Arno Peters’ map, a German historian, who launched the Peters world map based on the Gall–Peters projection in 1973.
And we’ve oversized perceptions too
Now because no man is an island we obviously want to redress other historical and geographical inaccuracies.
And sign up to Online campaign group #CorrectTheMap.
Who correctly point out: ‘You could fit the United States, China, India, Japan, Mexico and much of Europe into Africa and still have land to spare.’
It should come as little surprise then that the Commander in Chief’s people have belittled the resolution which is not binding.
With Yaryna Ferencevych, a US representative at the UN saying; ‘Instead of focusing on genuine problems of international peace, prosperity, or good relations.
‘The UN General Assembly is debating map projects from the 16th Century.
‘And their role in promoting reparations and ‘cognitive justice’.
