Although centuries have passed since Mercator’s 16th-century development of his widely adopted world map projection—intended to facilitate navigation for the colonial powers of his time—standard cartography continues to reproduce a state-centric, colonial worldview across media, politics, and school atlases. The world remains largely represented as state-appropriated territories, surrounded by static linear boundaries that envision homogeneous nation-states. Tellingly, the migration of the ‘Others’ is predominantly represented as unidirectional arrows invading these state-containers. The consequence of this hegemonic representation is that, despite critical border and migration studies convincingly establishing that borders and migration are dynamic, relational processes, standard cartography systematically normalizes nationalism and nativism, and suppresses demographic diversity, international interdependencies, and human experiences in its portrayal of borders and migration. In this lecture, based on my new book Free the Map, I examine the profound impact of this visual regime and give an overview of innovative artistic and cartographic counter-mapping practices that seek to humanize and mobilize the map. It is time to foster more inclusive and honest geographic imaginaries—and to Free the Map!