Objective mapping can remove the equatorial singularity from the problem of estimating geostrophic sphere from noisy density measurements. The method uses the complete thermal wind relation, so it is valid uniformly on and off the equator. Errors in the thermal wind balance are due to neglected terms in the momentum balance, which are treated as noise in the inverse problem. The question of whether the geostrophic balance holds near the equator is restated as a need to estimate the size of the ageostrophic noise in the thermal wind equation. Objective mapping formalizes the assumptions above the magnitudes and scales of the geostrophic currents and about the magnitudes and scales of the ageostrophic terms and measurement errors. The uncertainty of the velocity estimates is calculated as part of the mapping and depends on the signal to noise ratio (geostrophic density signal to ageostrophic ''noise'') in the data, as well as the station spacing and the scales assumed for the geostrophic velocities. The method is used to map zonal velocity from a mean Hawaii-Tahiti Shuttle density section. These are compared with previous velocity estimates for the same dataset calculated using other techniques. By choosing appropriate scales, the objective map can duplicate previous results. New temperature data are presented from a repeating, high-resolution expendable bathythermograph section crossing the equator at about 170¿W with four cruises a year between 1987--1991. There appear to be significant differences between this mean temperature and the shuttle mean temperature. Temperature is converted to density with the aid of a mean T--S relation and geostrophic velocity maps are calculated for the 4-year mean. The mean geostrophic undercurrent obtained from our sections is weaker than in the shuttle estimate and is centered slightly north of the equator. Enforcing symmetry about the equator removes the offset of the current, giving a stronger, but narrow undercurrent. The density field apparently includes significant <O (0.5 kg m-3)> large-scale ageostrophic variability which makes velocity estimates from single cruises poorly determined near the equator. ¿ American Geophysical Union 1993