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Cartographic curiosities
I was alerted to these maps by a Turkish gentleman, who posts them on his website. They are a reaction to the map of the Middle East, re-drawn as it was in the July issue of the US Armed Forces Journal (mentioned earlier in this blog). This American vision has upset a lot of people in the Middle ...
Belgium sits astride one of the main cultural fault lines of Europe, consisting roughly of a northern half that speaks Dutch and is oriented towards the ‘anglosphere’ and a southern half that speaks French and is oriented towards the ‘francophonie’. Ever since the federalisation of the country from ...
Cornwall is the southwesternmost county of England. As with other ‘extremities’ of the British Isles, it was one of the refuges of the original (partially romanized) Celtic inhabitants, fleeing before the invading Anglo-Saxons. Actually, when it was independent (during a period in the early Middle ...
An interesting look at the religions and language groups that are elements of division (and union) in Europe. The mapmaker wanted to make a point by indicating three ‘core areas’ where a certain language group and religion overlap – resulting in an area that is Germanic+Protestant, another one that ...
The British tried their hand at subduing Afghanistan in the 19th Century, when the Empire was at the top of its game. Their troops were massacred (with one man left alive to warn off other invasion attempts), which the British found in rather bad taste. This never gave them the opportunity to ...
Any and every American city is built up out of Avenues and Streets, most of them numbered. A much nicer way to describe a city is by mapping its neighbourhoods. As in this map of Manhattan. http://www.cominganarchy.com/archives/2006/06/29/the-neighborhoods/
What would Europe have looked like, had Imperial Germany won World War One? This image is taken off a French magazine at the start of the war, painting an exaggerated picture of German (and Austro-Hungarian) land-grabs in a Europe dominated by the victorious Central powers. In this Europe ...
The Americans are sinking into a quagmire of their own making in Iraq, but still fantasise about re-drawing the map of the whole Middle East more to their liking. One startling example is this map, produced by the Armed Forces Journal, who in their June issue portray a region that is further ...
The Albanians are descendants of the Illyrians, an ancient Balkan people who preceded the Slavic populations surrounding their native territories. They presently have an independent nation – Albania, in their own language ‘Shqipëtar’, meaning ‘Land of the Eagles’ – but are also the majority in ...
So you’re a map nerd and you think you know about every cartographic anomaly in the world, from the bizarre Belgian enclave of Baarle-Hertog in the south of the Netherlands to the three little islands in the Beagle Channel that almost caused a war between Chile and Argentina. Then you learn about ...
In the 1970s, geography professor C. Etzel Pearcy proposed redrawing the borders of the US states, reducing them from 50 to 38. Each new state’s name was chosen to represent a physical of cultural aspect of each new territory. This realignment was supposed to be more ‘organic’ and more logical, as ...
Texas is a special state within the US – not only the biggest of the contiguous 48 states, but also culturally distinct. Furthermore, it was at one time an independent state, after secession from Mexico and before absorption by the USA. This map shows what Texas might have been, had it remained ...
This map started popping up after the 2004 Presidential election in the US, when George W. Bush got re-elected (with a legitimate majority this time). Democratic challenger John F. Kerry only won a handful of states, mainly on both coasts – where the electorate is more ‘liberal’ than in the more ...
Horror writer Stephen King is a native of Maine and still lives there. Most of his books are situated in the state, although not all the towns he uses are real. This map shows real-world burgs in Maine (in green) and fictional localities (in blue). This map can be found on Stephen King’s ...
I like maps. I like weird maps, the kind you won’t find in a regular atlas. Maps of countries that never existed – or never will exist. I’ve given up on categorizing the maps I’ve collected so far – irredentism, alternate history,… – and decided to just be a little less anal. So, just for fun, here ...