Maps
It’s always interesting to compare world maps from different
countries. The differences are usually subtle, but they tell you
something about how a country sees itself in the world.
Australian maps are famously “upside down.” Countries generally
try to put themselves in the middle and towards the top, even if this
means distorting the relative area of each hemisphere. I bought a
map in a Japanese bookstore that marks the Northern Islands as Japanese
territory, and leaves southern Sakhalin blank - a reflection that
Russia and Japan never signed a peace treaty after World War II.
If you ever see a world map from China, you will find that the Chinese
maritime border extends way into the South China Sea, right up to
Singapore and Malaysia (Spratly Islands dispute). Changes over
time are also interesting. The Stanford history department had a
classroom map that proudly displayed two Vietnams and Okinawa as US
territory. I recall visiting the State Department in 2000 and
seeing a map on the wall that ominously declared much of Eurasia “the
communist bloc.” Presumably this reflected lack of funding rather
than an ossified mentality.
Andrew Jarvis
March 14, 2005 @ 1:22 pm
Wow! Fascinating! Somewhat scary in a way… can you recommend any further resources on this topic. Do you have a website about this?
Andrew
Phillip Lipscy
March 14, 2005 @ 6:49 pm
I don’t unfortunately have a website about this, and I’m not aware of anybody who does. It would be cool if somebody made a compilation of all the world maps out there. A few are available here, including the Australia map:
http://www.odt.org/NewMaps.htm
Eric Perramond
July 27, 2006 @ 11:22 am
Folks have long known and written about maps as expressions and reflections of shifting power over time. Of course they change. Of course they are biased. Read some J.B. Harley scholarship from the late 1980s for an introduction to the use of cartography as a spatial instrument of the state. - This is old news.
- epp, geographer
The Dog
August 14, 2007 @ 5:33 pm
Stumbled upon this purely by accident.. I was going to post a comment regarding maps from China, but then I realised this blog has not been updated for some time.
No point in posting am insightful comment about Sino Cartograghy…it would just be lost into the void.