• The Forum will gather, in Fortaleza, from June 11 to 13, participants from BRICS, Mercosur and CPLP, in a year marked by COP 30 debates in Brazil, which will involve countries in the Amazon biome.
• The inverted world map presents a new perspective at a moment Brazil plays an active role in debates and possibilities of the Global South and the world scenario, especially as president of BRICS and Mercosur.

The Brazilian Institute of Geography of Statistics (IBGE), in cooperation with the State Government of Ceará and other partners, will promote, from June 11 to 13, the "Triple International Forum on Governance of the Global South - New indicators and strategic topics for development and sustainability in the Digital Age," which will take place in Fortaleza, at the Event Center of Ceará (Av. Washington Soares, 999).

The Triple Forum has the objective of organizing a technical debate (face-to-face and remote), with the chance of gathering the heads of National Statistical Offices, authorities, representatives, public and private managers, universities, entities of civil society, young researchers, students, among others, around challenges posed to the International Governance in the Digital Age, and impacts on the economies of the Global South.

In addition, it is worth pointing out that, in 2025, Brazil presides BRICS and that Mercosur has the IBGE as the Brazilian representative of statistical offices in these countries. And Brazil will have a special agenda dedicated to the Community of Portuguese Language Countries.

These are three strategic forums for the advance of proposals and actions of new sovereign indicators and for reflection upon essential topics in development and sustainability, in the year of COP 30 - 30th UN Climate Change Conference (Conference of the Parties) in Brazil, which will have participation of countries in the Amazon biome. 

Schedule and registration 

The detailed schedule will be available from May 09, together with the Tripl Forum website, inside the IBGE portal (www.ibge.gov.br), with free registration (on the Internet only) open on the same day for all participants in Brazil and abroad.

In the videos below, the president of the IBGE, Marcio Pochmann, and the director of Geosciences, Maria do Carmo Dias Bueno, speak about the importance of the Triple Forum and of the release of the new world map. 

New inverted world map

The Triple Forum is being announced together with the launch of the official inverted world map, which, once again, shows Brazil in the center of the projection, now presenting a new perspective with the South on top, in both Portuguese and English.

The launch occurs in a year when Brazil is an active participant in debates and possibilities in the Global South and in the world scenario, especially as president of BRICS and member of Mercosur. And host of COP 30.

The new world map also shows the countries that form BRICS, Mercosur, Portuguese language countries and those in the Amazon biome, also the city of Rio de Janeiro, as capital of BRICS, the city of Belém, capital of COP 30 and Ceará as the host of the Triple Forum.

How to get the world map

The new world map will be available from tomorrow onwards on the IBGE online shop (with varied delivery dates), at https://loja.ibge.gov.br/. And, from Monday (12/05) on, at Palácio da Fazenda - Sobreloja 1, Centro/Castelo - Rio de Janeiro/RJ -;CEP: 20020-010.

The IBGE Bookshop is located inside Casa Brasil IBGE. For further information, visit: https://www.ibge.gov.br/casabrasil/

The IBGE Bookshop is now offering a 30% discount for clients that choose to buy the map at the branch in Rio de Janeiro.

Prices and formats will be available on the IBGE Bookshop page.

Customers of the online shop that decide to get their maps at the physical shop will also receive a 30% discount.

Due to the increased demand, physical purchases will start on Monday, May 12, from 10 to 4. 

For more information about sales, send an e-mail to lojavirtual@ibge.gob.br or call the shop at: (21) 99254-9711.

Technical note on the inverted World map

Mostly everyone in the world is used to seeing North America placed in the North and South America placed in the South, but that is not the only representation possible, or the only one recorded in history. 

In reality, there is no technical reason accounting for the positioning of cardinal points in the conventional spots, so, the traditional and the inverted forms of representation are equally correct. 

Cartographic convention placing the North on top and the East on the right was established by astronomer Ptolemy and was widely adopted by other cartographers such as Mercator and Waldseemüller. But there are maps with different orientations where the North is not on top. It is the case, for example of medieval maps and of maps designed by other cultures.

In modern maps, there are issues related to political claims on the inverted maps, usually by countries in the Southern Hemisphere. According to Nicole De Armendi, the orientation of maps “reinforces positions of power, draws global networks and establishes hierarchical relations between the nations and continents.”

A famous example is the work of Uruguayan artist Joaquín Torres-García, who, in 1943 created what is known as the "inverted map". The work became a symbol for Latin American people in their efforts to become acknowledged in a global view of the world. 

The inverted map is launched at the moment Brazil is the president of BRICS, a moment of focus on the CPLP agenda and of an event such as COP 30 in the country. 

In this context, the IBGE releases this new version of the world map together with actions to be promoted by the Institute in 2025 as the leader of survey institutes of the aforementioned geopolitical groups. Actions include a schedule of national and international events and the launch of surveys and indicators, among other dissemination activities. 

This release is one among a series of strategic actions aiming at reflection and debate about the importance of the Global South, in scenario marked by the growing importance of Brazil in the world and geopolitical changes currently taking place. 

In 2024, the IBGE launched a world map with Brazil at the center of the projection in the year of the G20.