India Objects to New UN World Map Over Depiction of Arunachal Pradesh and Aksai Chin
India objected on 9 September 2026 to a new United Nations world map showing anomalies in the depiction of Arunachal Pradesh and Aksai Chin. The map was issued by the UN Geospatial unit on 1 July 2026 using the Equal Earth projection, an equal-area projection introduced in 2018. The Ministry of External Affairs stated on 8 September that Arunachal Pradesh is integral to India and Aksai Chin part of the Union Territory of Ladakh, and that India's sovereign territory must be shown in line with its official map. India had voted for the UNGA resolution "Correct the Map" on 4 September, clarifying it endorsed equal-area mapping, not any boundary depiction.
The India-China boundary dispute has three sectors - western (Aksai Chin), middle (Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand) and eastern (Arunachal Pradesh, along the McMahon Line) | Ladakh became a Union Territory without a legislature on 31 October 2019 under the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019 | The Mercator projection preserves angles but distorts area, while equal-area projections such as Equal Earth and Gall-Peters preserve relative area