The African Union (AU) wants people to stop using a map that was made in 1569. It shows Africa as being small. It is the world's most widely used map. However, countries far from the Equator look larger than they are. Countries closer to the Equator look smaller. The AU wants a map that shows the correct size of Africa.
The AU said Africa is the world's second-largest continent, but the map did not show this. A non-profit organization agreed called the map "misinformation". Another group wants people to use the Equal Earth map, which was made in 2018. On this map "Africa appears 14 times larger than Greenland, as it actually is".
Try the same news story at these levels:
Map of Africa - Level 1, Map of Africa - Level 2 or Map of Africa - Level 3
Sources- https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/15/african-union-true-size-world-map-replace-mercator-version
- https://edition.cnn.com/2025/08/15/africa/africa-real-size-world-map-campaign-intl
- https://correctthemap.org/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercator_projection
- https://equal-earth.com/
Make sure you try all of the online activities for this reading and listening - There are dictations, multiple choice activities, drag and drop activities, sentence jumbles, which word activities, text reconstructions, spelling, gap fills and a whole lot more. Please enjoy :-)