Popular navigation apps unlikely to ditch Mercator maps despite UN resolution

A United Nations-backed initiative promoting the Equal Earth map projection has not led major navigation applications to adopt it as their default display method. The Equal Earth projection, which aims to represent landmass sizes more proportionally than the traditional Mercator projection used since the 16th century, has been endorsed by the UN but lacks the technical infrastructure required for real-time navigation. Navigation apps including Google Maps and Apple Maps continue to use the Mercator projection for routing and location services.

Next story