The United Nations General Assembly recently passed a resolution encouraging the use of more accurate world maps, but it's unlikely to affect popular navigation apps. The resolution, which received 164 votes in favor and six abstentions, with only the United States opposing, promotes the Equal Earth projection over the traditional Mercator map. However, the resolution is non-binding and does not mandate changes.

Mercator maps, developed by Gerardus Mercator in 1569, distort landmass sizes, especially near the poles. For example, Africa appears roughly the same size as Greenland, though Africa is 14 times larger. Despite this, the Mercator projection remains widely used in digital navigation apps like Google Maps and Apple Maps, which together serve billions of users.

The UN resolution encourages governments, schools, and tech companies to adopt equal-area maps for educational and policy purposes. Yet, navigation apps rely on Mercator for practical reasons, such as preserving angles and shapes for turn-by-turn directions. Changing this would require significant redesign and could compromise user experience.

While the resolution may raise awareness about map distortions, it is unlikely to prompt immediate changes in mainstream navigation tools. The practicality of Mercator for real-time routing outweighs its inaccuracies for most users, so the status quo is expected to persist.