UN votes to adopt new world map to reflect Africa's true size

JUST IN: UN votes to adopt a new world map reflecting Africa's true size, with the resolution backed by 164 nations and the US the only country to vote against.

The world map you grew up with just got voted out. The UN General Assembly passed a resolution to ditch the Mercator projection, 164 nations in favour, and exactly one against. The United States.

Here's why it matters. That map, drawn in 1569 for European sailors, shows Africa about the same size as Greenland. In reality Africa is fourteen times bigger. You could fit the US, China, India, Japan and much of Europe inside it with room to spare. Togo sponsored the fix, and its foreign minister put it simply, a fair world begins with a fair map.

France and the UK backed it, and Paris says its foreign ministry is dropping Mercator entirely. Washington called the whole exercise a mockery of the UN's purpose. The vote isn't binding, but institutions everywhere will now redraw their walls.

Five centuries of looking at the world wrong, corrected by a show of hands.

This is Sara White, reporting for HIT.