This issue goes sideways instead of backwards. Five stories from the past four days in which the map itself is the story: a projection retired by vote at the UN, a ridge changing hands in southern Lebanon, a bridge across a river that never had one, a strait being contested metre by metre, and a German election that traced a line drawn in 1945.

1. The UN votes to retire Mercator. The General Assembly adopted a Togo-sponsored resolution calling for the world to formally phase out the traditional Mercator projection in favour of Equal Earth, which shows countries at their true relative sizes (Guardian, 4 Sept; New York Times, 4 Sept). Mercator, published in 1569, was built for navigation: it renders constant compass bearings as straight lines and pays for that by inflating everything far from the equator. On it, Greenland reads roughly the size of Africa. In reality Africa is about fourteen times larger. Every projection is a trade-off; this was a vote on which trade-off to teach.

2. The far right wins a German state. Alternative für Deutschland won Sunday's election in Saxony-Anhalt — its strongest state result to date — but fell about three seats short of a majority and has no straightforward path to governing (BBC, Guardian, Al Jazeera, New York Times). Friedrich Merz's CDU slumped, and a French minister called the outcome a "grave moment" for Europe. The geography is the part worth marking. Saxony-Anhalt is one of the five states reconstituted from the former East Germany, and the AfD's map of strength still follows that outline more closely than any other line on the German map. More on that below.

3. Israel entrenches in southern Lebanon. Israeli air attacks on the southern Lebanese village of Kfar Reman killed nine people on Sunday, with two medics reported killed in a separate drone strike (BBC, Al Jazeera, New York Times; the outlets give tolls of nine to eleven). Lebanon says the escalation is jeopardising the US-brokered ceasefire meant to end the conflict with Hezbollah. The territorial detail matters more than the tally: Israel captured a strategic ridge last week and says it is cementing its foothold, which the New York Times reports has deepened worries that its occupation of Lebanese territory will be prolonged. The ceasefire line is being redrawn by possession.

4. The Houthis push toward Bab al-Mandab. Fighting on Yemen's west coast has killed at least 60 people, civilians among them, in some of the deadliest clashes in years (Guardian). The Houthis, who abandoned a shaky truce with the Saudi-backed government in July, appear to be trying to take a port city near the Bab al-Mandab strait and to secure the high ground commanding the entrance to the Red Sea (New York Times, Deutsche Welle). The strait is about 30 kilometres across at its narrowest and is the southern gate of the Suez route. Whoever holds its Yemeni shore holds a tap on one of the shortest lists in world trade.

5. Russia and North Korea open a road across the Tumen. The two countries have opened the first road bridge across their shared border on the Tumen River, a further sign of tightening ties since the start of the war in Ukraine. In this cycle the story appears in only one of our feeds — the Guardian, 7 Sept — so treat the detail as single-sourced. The border is among the shortest in the world, roughly 17 kilometres of river frontage tucked between China and the sea, and until now the only fixed crossing was a rail bridge dating from 1959. A road link changes what can move, and how fast, along a line that was close to decorative.

The historical parallel

Look again at Saxony-Anhalt. The state sits entirely inside the red on this map — the Soviet occupation zone agreed among the Allies in 1945, which hardened four years later into the German Democratic Republic. Saxony-Anhalt was assembled inside that zone, dissolved by the GDR in 1952, and restored at reunification in 1990.

Thirty-six years after the border was erased, it remains one of the sharpest dividing lines on German electoral maps: the AfD's vote is highest almost exactly where the red was. Why is genuinely disputed — four decades of separate political development, but also depopulation, an older median age, and a wage and wealth gap that never fully closed. The line is gone from the ground. It has not gone from the data.

Sources: Guardian, "UN votes to adopt new world map that shows Africa's true scale" (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/sep/04/un-vote-world-map-mercator-equal-earth-africa); New York Times, "U.N. Approves African Proposal for a New World Map" (https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/04/world/africa/world-map-projection-africa.html); Guardian, "Far-right AfD wins key German state election but falls just short of majority" (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/sep/06/saxony-anhalt-germany-afd-exit-poll-ulrich-siegmund); New York Times, "Germany's Far Right Just Misses Majority in Crucial State Election" (https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/06/world/europe/germany-afd-election-saxony-anhalt.html); Al Jazeera, "World reacts to AfD victory in east Germany state election" (https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/9/7/world-reacts-to-afd-victory-in-east-germany-state-election); BBC, "Israeli strikes in southern Lebanese village kill nine" (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5yl96vz0edo); Al Jazeera, "Israeli air attacks kill at least 11 people in southern Lebanon" (https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/9/7/israeli-air-attack-kills-at-least-10-people-in-southern-lebanon); New York Times, "Israel Says It Is Cementing Its Foothold in Southern Lebanon" (https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/04/world/middleeast/israel-captures-ridge-occupation-katz.html); Guardian, "Civilians among at least 60 killed in Yemen as ground fighting escalates" (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/sep/05/yemen-ground-fighting-escalates-houthi-rebels-government-forces); New York Times, "Yemen's Houthis Push Toward Red Sea Strait as Ground Fighting Escalates" (https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/04/world/middleeast/yemen-houthis-red-sea-strait.html); Deutsche Welle, "Yemen: Fighting intensifies amid Houthi push in the west" (https://www.dw.com/en/yemen-fighting-intensifies-amid-houthi-push-in-the-west/a-79039588); Guardian, "Russia and North Korea open first road bridge across their shared border" (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/sep/07/russia-north-korea-open-first-road-bridge-tumen-river).

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