Jack Swab, University of Tennessee and Derek H. Alderman, University of Tennessee

The African Union has endorsed the #CorrectTheMap Campaign, a call for the United Nations and the wider global community to use a different kind of world map. The campaign currently has over 4,500 signatures.

The map most commonly used is called the Mercator projection. Map projections are how cartographers (map makers) “flatten” the three-dimensional Earth into a two-dimensional map.

The Mercator projection was created over 450 years ago, designed for colonial exploration and maritime trade. But, over the centuries, it has become an “all purpose” projection for many governments, educators and companies.

That flat drawing inflates the size of countries closer to the North or South Pole. It exaggerates the area of North America and Eurasia while under-representing the size of much of South America and Africa. As the largest continent in the global south, Africa is a victim of this cartographic inequity.

The #CorrectTheMap campaign calls for a move to the Equal Earth map projection, developed in 2018 by an international team of cartographers. It addresses the distortions found in the Mercator projection.

Controversies over map projections are not new. Since the 1970s cartographers have discussed how certain projections distort how the Earth looks and how people imagine their place in that world.

At the heart of the debates about maps are tensions about what sort of power maps have in the world.

A change in map projections, for the African Union, is about more than correcting a technical flaw. It’s also a chance to influence how current and future map users view, talk about and value Africa.

The call is a demand for Africans to be represented on their own terms, rather than through cartographic traditions that have long diminished their scale and significance.

As cartographers, we pay attention to the social and communicative power of maps.

Given that maps help shape how we make sense of the world, the simplest decisions that go into crafting a map can have major geopolitical consequences.

Maps are not neutral

There are over 200 major projections of the world map. Each one warps the image of the Earth in different ways, making the choice of projection a consequential and complicated decision rather than a neutral one.

For example the Dymaxion projection, developed by the American engineer Buckminster Fuller, was designed to challenge ideas of the north and the south. Others, like the Lambert conformal conic projection, are used extensively in aviation to aid in flight planning.

Maps are a form of storytelling, as well as an information source. Even the lines, colours, symbols and size of regions depicted on maps communicate social meaning. They subtly but powerfully educate people, from schoolchildren to world leaders, about who and what matters.

US president Donald Trump’s recent interest in the US buying Greenland, citing its large size, was likely influenced by map distortion. The Mercator projection shows Greenland as nearly the same size as Africa, when in reality Africa is about 14 times larger.

Other projections do a better job at more accurately representing the true size of continents. Some projections are better than others for this specific task; for example the Gall-Peters projection has been used in the past as an alternative to the Mercator projection.

Cartography as a tool of control

Cartography has been a powerful tool of control throughout Africa’s history. Topographers and surveyors participated in the European conquest and colonisation of Africa, regularly accompanying military expeditions. Map-makers in Europe framed Africa as a landscape to be exploited by populating maps with trade routes, resources and blank spaces ready for development – all while often ignoring the mapping traditions and geographic knowledge of indigenous Africans.

The Berlin Conference of 1885, where European powers assembled with no African representation, was one of the pinnacles of this cartographic and colonial grab and partitioning of the continent.

The Mercator projection is joined by other kinds of western storytelling – found across popular culture, the news and diplomatic circles – that have stereotyped, degraded and undersized Africa’s place in the world.

Viewed in this light, the public reckoning over the Mercator projection can be interpreted as not just about the visual accuracy of a map, also the restoration of dignity and autonomy.

Why changing the world map is difficult

Bringing about changes won’t be easy.

Firstly, global map production is not governed by a single authority. Even if the United Nations were to adopt the Equal Earth projection, world maps could still be drawn in other projections. Cartographers are frequently commissioned to update world maps to reflect changes to names and borders. But the changes don’t always find quick acceptance. For example, cartographers changed English-language world maps after the Czech Republic adopted the name “Czechia” as its English name in 2016. While making the change was not difficult, broader acceptance has been harder to achieve.

A person’s mental image of the world is solidified at a young age. The effects of a shift to the Equal Earth projection may take years to materialise. Previous efforts to move away from Mercator projection, such as by Boston Public Schools in 2017, upset cartographers and parents alike.

Given the African Union’s larger goals, supporting the Equal Earth projection is the first step in pushing the global community to see the world more fairly and reframing how the world values Africa. Mobilising social support for the new projection through workshops with educators, diplomatic advocacy, forums with textbook publishers, journalists, and Africa’s corporate partners could help move the world away from the Mercator projection for everyday use.

Shifting to the Equal Earth projection alone will not undo centuries of distorted representations or guarantee more equitable global relations. But it’s a step towards restoring Africa’s rightful visibility on the world stage.

Jack Swab, Assistant Professor Department of Geography & Sustainability, University of Tennessee and Derek H. Alderman, Chancellor’s Professor of Geography, University of Tennessee

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Seth T. Kannarr, University of Tennessee; Derek H. Alderman, University of Tennessee, and Jordan Brasher, Macalester College

Place names are more than just labels on a map. They influence how people learn about the world around them and perceive their place in it.

Names can send messages and suggest what is and isn’t valued in society. And the way that they are changed over time can signal cultural shifts.

The United States is in the midst of a place-renaming moment. From the renaming of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, to the return of Forts Bragg and Benning and the newly re-renamed Mount McKinley in Alaska’s Denali National Park, we are witnessing a consequential shift in the politics of place naming.

This sudden rewriting of the nation’s map – done to “restore American greatness,” according to President Donald Trump’s executive order that made some of them official – is part of a name game that recognizes place names as powerful brands and political tools.

In our research on place naming, we explore how this “name game” is used to assert control over shared symbols and embed subtle and not-so-subtle messages in the landscape.

As geography teachers and researchers, we also recognize the educational and emotional impact the name game can have on the public.

Place names can have psychological effects

Renaming a place is always an act of power.

People in power have long used place naming to claim control over the identity of the place, bolster their reputations, retaliate against opponents and achieve political goals.

These moves can have strong psychological effects, particularly when the name evokes something threatening. Changing a place name can fundamentally shift how people view, relate to or feel that they belong within that place.

In Shenandoah County, Virginia, students at two schools originally named for Confederate generals have been on an emotional roller coaster of name changes in recent years. The schools were renamed Mountain View and Honey Run in 2020 amid the national uproar over the murder of George Floyd, a Black man killed by a police officer in Minneapolis.

Four years later, the local school board reinstated the original Confederate names after conservatives took control of the board.

One Black eighth grader at Mountain View High School — now re-renamed Stonewall Jackson High School — testified at a board meeting about how the planned change would affect her:

“I would have to represent a man that fought for my ancestors to be slaves. If this board decides to restore the names, I would not feel like I was valued and respected,” she said. The board still approved the change, 5-1.

Even outside of schools, place names operate as a “hidden curriculum.” They provide narratives to the public about how the community or nation sees itself – as well as whose histories and perspectives it considers important or worthy of public attention.

Place names affect how people perceive, experience and emotionally connect to their surroundings in both conscious and subconscious ways. Psychologists, sociologists and geographers have explored how this sense of place manifests itself into the psyche, creating either attachment or aversion to place, whether it’s a school, mountain or park.

A tale of two forts

Renaming places can rally a leader’s supporters through rebranding.

Trump’s orders to restore the names Fort Bragg and Fort Benning, both originally named for Confederate generals, illustrate this effect. The names were changed to Fort Liberty and Fort Moore in 2023 after Congress passed a law banning the use of Confederate names for federal installations.

Trump made a campaign promise to his followers to “bring back the name” of Fort Bragg if reelected.

To get around the federal ban, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth identified two unrelated decorated Army veterans with the same last names — Bragg and Benning — but without any Confederate connections, to honor instead.

Call it a sleight of hand or a stroke of genius if you’d like, this tactic allowed the Department of Defense to revive politically charged names without violating the law.

The restoration of the names Bragg and Benning may feel like a symbolic homecoming for those who resisted the original name change or have emotional ties to the names through their memories of living and serving on the base, rather than a connection to the specific namesakes.

However, the names are still reminders of the military bases’ original association with defenders of slavery.

The place-renaming game

A wave of place-name changes during the Obama and Biden administrations focused on removing offensive or derogatory place names and recognizing Indigenous names.

For example, Clingmans Dome, the highest peak in the Great Smoky Mountains, was renamed to Kuwohi in September 2024, shifting the name from a Confederate general to a Cherokee word meaning “the mulberry place.”

Under the Trump administration, however, place-name changes are being advanced explicitly to push back against reform efforts, part of a broader assault on what Trump calls “woke culture.”

President Barack Obama changed Alaska’s Mount McKinley to Denali in 2015 to acknowledge Indigenous heritage and a long-standing name for the mountain. Officials in Alaska had requested the name change to Denali years earlier and supported the name change in 2015.

Trump, on his first day in office in January 2025, moved to rename Denali back to Mount McKinley, over the opposition of Republican politicians in Alaska. The state Legislature passed a resolution a few days later asking Trump to reconsider.

Georgia Rep. Earl “Buddy” Carter made a recent legislative proposal to rename Greenland as “Red, White, and Blueland” in support of Trump’s expansionist desire to purchase the island, which is an autonomous territory of Denmark.

Danish officials and Greenlanders saw Carter’s absurd proposal as insulting and damaging to diplomatic relations. It is not the first time that place renaming has been used as a form of symbolic insult in international relations.

Renaming the Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America might have initially seemed improbable, but it is already reflected in common navigation apps.

A better way to choose place names

When leaders rename a place in an abrupt, unilateral fashion — often for ideological reasons — they risk alienating communities that deeply connect with those names as a form of memory, identity and place attachment.

A better alternative, in our view, would be to make renaming shared landscapes participatory, with opportunities for meaningful public involvement in the renaming process.

This approach does not avoid name changes, but it suggests the changes should respond to the social and psychological needs of communities and the evolving cultural identity of places — and not simply be used to score political points.

Instead, encouraging public participation — such as through landscape impact assessments and critical audits that take the needs of affected communities seriously — can cultivate a sense of shared ownership in the decision that may give those names more staying power.

The latest place renamings are already affecting the classroom experience. Students are not just memorizing new place labels, but they are also being asked to reevaluate the meaning of those places and their own relationship with the nation and the world.

As history has shown around the world, one of the major downsides of leaders imposing name changes is that the names can be easily replaced as soon as the next regime takes power. The result can be a never-ending name game.

Seth T. Kannarr, PhD Candidate in Geography, University of Tennessee; Derek H. Alderman, Chancellor’s Professor of Geography, University of Tennessee, and Jordan Brasher, Visiting Assistant Professor of Geography, Macalester College

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Seth T. Kannarr, University of Tennessee and Derek H. Alderman, University of Tennessee

It’s not every day that the name of a mountain is restored to the one used by Indigenous peoples for centuries.

But after nearly two years of trying, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians finally convinced the U.S. Board on Geographic Names on Sept. 18, 2024, to formally agree to rename the highest point in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park of Tennessee to Kuwohi (koo-whoa-hee).

The mountain, known as “Clingmans Dome” since 1859, has been a sacred place for the Cherokee people, serving as a place of prayer, reflection and gathering of mulberries for medicine. In fact, the name Kuwohi translates to “the mulberry place” in Tsalagi, the Cherokee language.

Though known as Kuwohi by the Cherokee people for hundreds of years, explorer Arnold Guyot effectively ignored that history after he surveyed the mountain range in 1859. Guyot named the peak “Clingmans Dome” after his friend Thomas Lanier Clingman, a North Carolina U.S. senator and a Confederate brigadier general during the Civil War. Clingman never set foot on this mountain, but his name remained there for 165 years until now.

What is place name repatriation?

The government’s renaming of the mountain to Kuwohi is a significant example of place name repatriation, or the return of an original, Indigenous name to a particular place or landscape.

Sometimes the primary motivation for place renaming is to remove an offensive or irrelevant place name from the landscape, such as the renaming of Squaw Peak in Arizona to Piostewa Peak in 2008.

In other cases, such as the renaming of Mount McKinley in Alaska to Denali in 2016, the motivation was to create a more authentic and historically accurate name for a particular place.

In the case of Kuwohi, the return to its original name was a mixture of both. The government’s decision recognized the original Indigenous name and removed the name of a white man who defended the enslavement of African people. It is also about restoring a larger sense of respect and recognition of Indigenous identity across the landscape.

Just as important is the fact that it was individuals from the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians who put forward this proposal and remained the lead throughout the process.

Place naming is only truly reparative if these processes truly reflect the agency and intent of these historically oppressed groups. Otherwise, it contributes to the long history of dismissing Indigenous claims to land and culture by not involving them.

Why does place naming matter?

A name is one of the most fundamental ways to identify and give meaning to places. In other words, the name of the place makes a big difference in how people perceive it.

There is growing public recognition that place names can transmit harmful messages that misrepresent the history and identity of minority communities. Place names also can demonstrate how those in power have used them to disrespect and misrepresent ethnic and racial groups that have been historically discriminated against.

For those groups, the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Advisory Committee on Reconciliation in Place Names found in 2022 that derogatory place names are a source of recurring trauma.

If place naming did not matter, disputes over name changes would not occur. Some critics find place renaming to be an example of unnecessary political correctness, while others see it as a meaningful solution that will leave a lasting positive impact.

The elimination of names of Confederate generals from some U.S. military bases provides another example. Former President Donald Trump has pledged to restore the name “Fort Bragg” to the North Carolina Army base that’s known today as Fort Liberty if reelected. Originally named after Braxton Bragg, a slave-owning Confederate general, the fort was one of nine U.S. installations that the Defense Department ordered in 2023 to have their names changed to among 3,700 recommendations.

Trump’s stance exemplifies the wave of backlash that has occurred against local and state school officials across the country that have removed the names of Confederate generals and others from public buildings.

Despite such backlash, efforts by Indigenous people and civil rights advocates slowly move forward and are seen across the U.S. in places like streets, neighborhoods, college campuses and beyond.

For Lavita Hill and Mary Crowe, the two members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians who took the lead on submitting the proposal, the renaming of Kuwohi was a moment of success. Their campaign was heavily inspired by the renaming of Mount Doane to First Peoples Mountain in Yellowstone National Park in 2022.

Crowe told reporters that she saw friends and relatives shed tears when they learned of the name change. “It was humbling,” she said. “It was beautiful.”

What comes next?

The success of the effort to restore the name Kuwohi may help other communities in their ongoing place renaming efforts.

One such proposal involves a 100-year-old fight to rename Mount Rainier in Washington state to “Tacoma,” the original name given to it by the Salish people of the Pacific Northwest.

This movement began in 1924 among the Salish and other groups because its namesake, Peter Rainier, was a British naval officer who was known as being “anti-American.”

Another example is a push by 20 different Indigenous tribes, including the Lakota Nation and the Oglala Sioux Tribe, to rename Devils Tower in Wyoming to Bear Lodge. The current name of this butte resulted from a poor English translation of the original Indigenous name of “bear lodge” to “bad god’s tower.” Over time, the name was simplified to “Devils Tower.”

As geographers who have studied the significance of place renaming, we have learned that it is important to engage the folks that these movements will benefit most in all conversations and decisions.

What is at stake is not just removing insulting names, but also ensuring that the process of changing place names is collaborative of all Americans, especially historically oppressed communities, to truly be restorative and meaningful for society.

Seth T. Kannarr, PhD Student in Geography, University of Tennessee and Derek H. Alderman, Chancellor’s Professor of Geography, University of Tennessee

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.