I. ARGENTINE ANTARCTICA
In the Arrested Development episode “Queen for a Day,” matriarch Lucille Bluth enlarges her own bathroom by encroaching on best friend/rival Lucille Austero’s property, moving a shared wall over by a few inches. Bluth’s maneuver is a quick, easy illustration of a boundary dispute. One party claims territory is theirs and then simply takes it. What is the other party going to do?
Since a national boundary isn’t typically a permanent wall, nations often assert their territorial claims in a more cartographic manner.
Antarctica, the last great hunk of land available for discovery, was actually only discovered in 1820, when a Russian exploration team first sighted the continent. There was not, however, much physical exploration of the land, and expeditions were few and generally far between. Famed Anglo-Irish explorer Ernest Shackleton didn’t get to Antarctica until 1907, and Norwegian Roald Amundsen didn’t make it to the South Pole until 1911. Other teams set up camps along the edges of the continent, but harsh winds and subzero temperatures meant that there were only a few permanent settlements. The first of these belonged to Argentina.
The Argentine camp, a weather station built just off the mainland on Laurie Island, was established 40 years before any other country built an Antarctic structure meant to last. Argentina boasts the first Antarctic birth, lighthouse, airport, and many others “firsts,” which they use to back up their claim to their sizable slice of the Antarctic pie: the land located between 25°W and 74°W.
Given the convenient marker at its center, all claims to the Antarctic terminate at the South Pole. And all of these official claims—eight total, with two of those, noncontiguous Norwegian land—are covered by the 1959 Antarctic Treaty, which defends the claims but also bars any future ones. It is an imperfect agreement: Argentina’s claim overlaps both Chile’s and the United Kingdom’s. The overlap with Chile’s claim, about 20 degrees of longitude, is understandable. But with the United Kingdom’s, less so: as the United Kingdom’s border is tied to their South Sandwich Islands, their bid covers the entire Argentine claim, plus much of Chile’s!
Maps come in handy here, as there are no physical borders that follow exact longitude lines and no one is going to send an army down to defend frigid, dangerous, ice-covered land. This map, provided by the Dirección Nacional del Antártico Instituto Antártico Argentino, shows all Argentine base stations located on the continent. Like most other maps of Argentina’s claim, it makes no mention whatsoever of the fact that two other nations also include the attractively curved Antarctic Peninsula and Weddell Sea on their own territorial maps.
In the end, it really doesn’t matter what land belongs to whom. Most of the bases spread out across the land include scientists and workers from a variety of lands, including many nations that don’t claim any of Antarctica at all.
II. THE BRITISH EMPIRE
On that map, you’ll notice that the Falkland Islands are also claimed by Argentina. Antarctica isn’t the only place that both Argentina and Britain claim for themselves. Nor is that section of the planet the only place that has been marked by a British flag. Great Britain is a lot smaller now than it was 125 years ago. But look at any political map of the world. Odds are, the country will appear either in pink or in red, a cartographic nod to the British Empire.
The British Empire, on all maps produced at its height,* is shown in a dusty pink color. According to the National Maritime Museum (located, logically, at Greenwich), the British territory was supposed to be red. The British are always red: Redcoats, the Tudor Rose, Remembrance poppies. Besides, it’s a powerful color. It would stand out proud on an otherwise beige map. But mapmakers protested, you can’t read a black writing on red territory. So it was pink, and nearly always pink.
The map shown here, published in 1886, is a truly remarkable example of what imperial cartography looks like. This is hubris on paper. This is a picture worth a thousand bragging rights.
All of the pink lands, from Victoria to Bombay,** are connected by crisp, attractively bowed lines marked with the distance between: Sydney to London by Panama, 12637 miles. Southampton to Calcutta, 7878 miles. Natal to Mauritius, 1552 miles. At this point, the sun actually would not set on British territory, as at any given time it would be daylight somewhere under British control. This map was published in a weekly newspaper called The Graphic, a highly influential art and news publication that employed folks like Randolph Caldecott* and George Eliot. It is just screaming out to the British public, “See the world? It belongs to you!”
The territory and route lines aren’t the only things on display. Heck, they aren’t even the most obvious things on display. The map is artfully embellished with all manner of imperial subjects, shown in blatant caricature, from bundled-up Eskimos to barely-dressed Africans. Most of them proffer goods as a gift to the viewer, showing what they can contribute to British industry.
Major colonies are seen accompanied by charts that show their area, population and general trade statistics. But my favorite part of this map—the part that best shows that this more statement of power than mere reference—is the inset. China, Mongolia, and Eastern Russia had no British influence; not even one minuscule island on which to stake a flag. So the cartographer, bless his heart, put an entire map of the world as an inset, adding a much-needed blast of pink to the otherwise all-beige map. This particular map shows the world a century previous.
“Look how far we’ve come!” it says, “Imagine what the world will look like a hundred years from now. It’ll be even more pink!”
* And there were a LOT produced at its height
** Mumbai
*** He of the eponymous illustration medal
III. NICARAGUA, COSTA RICA & GOOGLE
A hundred years (and change) after that map, boundaries are still a source of pride and, thus, a source of problems. In November 2010, a Nicaraguan commander invaded Costa Rica after noting an error on a map. What makes this event notable* is that the error was on Google Maps.
The border between Costa Rica and Nicaragua is formed by the San Juan River. The San Juan flows from Lake Nicaragua out to the Caribbean Sea. According to the Cañas-Jerez Treaty of 1858 (as interpreted by US President Grover Cleveland in 1888), Nicaragua controls the river itself, but Costa Rica is allowed to use its waters.
At the very end of the river, where it lets out into the Caribbean, there is an island. Isla Caldero, with the San Juan River on one side and a smaller stream on the other, had until then been solidly Costa Rican. It’s a 60 square mile nature preserve. However, the border between the two countries isn’t exactly friendly. When Commander Eden Pastora looked at Google Maps,** he saw that the border line placed Isla Caldero in Nicaragua.
Costa Rica was occupying Nicaraguan land! Pastora invaded, dotting the island with 50 Nicaraguan soldiers.
But this was not a rogue operation by a crazy person. No, it was entirely backed by the Nicaraguan government, who chose to selectively interpret the aforementioned treaty to match what Pastora saw on the internet. The Vice President was quoted as saying, “We cannot invade our own territory!” Costa Rica, which has no army, responded by sending in local police to arrest the invasion force. If these troops were on Costa Rican land, it was reasoned, then they were governed by Costa Rican law.
Meanwhile, a thoroughly embarrassed Google issued a statement asking that their maps not be used “to decide military actions.”
Costa Rica filed a complaint with the International Court of Justice, who ordered the border placed back to where it was originally understood to be located, and took the step of barring everyone from the island save Costa Rican environmental workers.
Looking at the area in Google Maps today, the border line follows the San Juan River, the Treaty, and the arbitration decision of the International Court of Justice. But it’s easy to see how Postera and the Nicaraguan government were swayed by a single misdrawn line. Google is one of the most powerful companies on Earth, and it’s not unreasonable to take their word as final say. Take a look at this infographic, published by national newspaper La Prensa at the time of the crisis, and compare it to the current border as shown in Google Maps.
This is not a very large area. By the way the river flows, one can see how that line was initially drawn in the software. This is an important reminder that maps are not infallible. A cartographer might make a best guess. There could be incorrect source data. A program might generalize the twists and turns of a river.
IV. DRAWING THE LINE
I’m not going to be kicked out of the profession for saying that, either—it’s just a fact of cartography. You can’t draw a border that will satisfy all parties. But if you’re the one drawing the borders, particularly on a national map, you are shaping the national image, one that many, many people will see and use. Mark Monmonier—an industry-beloved geography professor at Syracuse University and author of a dozen-plus enticingly titled books (examples: “Cartographies of Danger: Mapping Hazards in America,” “Bushmanders & Bullwinkles: How Politicians Manipulate Election Maps & Census Data to Win Elections,” “From Squaw Tit to Whorehouse Meadow: How Maps Name, Claim, and Inflame”***)—acknowledges this issue in maps, particularly borders, in “How to Lie with Maps.” A section called Maps as Symbols of Power and Nationhood begins:
The map is the perfect symbol of the state. If your grand duchy or tribal area seems tired, run-down, and frayed at the edges, simply take a sheet of paper, plot some cities, roads, and physical features, draw a heavy distinct boundary around as much territory as you dare claim, color it in, add a name—perhaps reinforced with the impressive prefix “Republic of”—and presto: you are now the leader of a new, sovereign, autonomous country. Should anyone doubt it, merely point to the map. Not only is your new state on paper, it’s on a map, so it must be real.
And that final bit, that’s what happened in each of these examples: “It’s on a map, so it must be real.” The Argentinians, British, Hondurans and Costa Ricans all wholeheartedly backed the idea that lines and colors on paper are a permanent, binding document. Oh, well.
You can’t please everyone, right?
* Not that any other invasions aren’t, but you know.
** He now denies doing this, but he’s quoted as saying it in the national newspaper. Sooo......
*** This is one of the most entertaining books I’ve ever read about toponyms (yes, there are others, they are dry as hell)
Victoria Johnson is a GIS (geographic information science) analyst and cartographer based in Washington, DC. She graduated from the Department of Geography of George Washington University.
In the Arrested Development episode “Queen for a Day,” matriarch Lucille Bluth enlarges her own bathroom by encroaching on best friend/rival Lucille Austero’s property, moving a shared wall over by a few inches. Bluth’s maneuver is a quick, easy illustration of a boundary dispute. One party claims territory is theirs and then simply takes it. What is the other party going to do?
Since a national boundary isn’t typically a permanent wall, nations often assert their territorial claims in a more cartographic manner.
Antarctica, the last great hunk of land available for discovery, was actually only discovered in 1820, when a Russian exploration team first sighted the continent. There was not, however, much physical exploration of the land, and expeditions were few and generally far between. Famed Anglo-Irish explorer Ernest Shackleton didn’t get to Antarctica until 1907, and Norwegian Roald Amundsen didn’t make it to the South Pole until 1911. Other teams set up camps along the edges of the continent, but harsh winds and subzero temperatures meant that there were only a few permanent settlements. The first of these belonged to Argentina.
The Argentine camp, a weather station built just off the mainland on Laurie Island, was established 40 years before any other country built an Antarctic structure meant to last. Argentina boasts the first Antarctic birth, lighthouse, airport, and many others “firsts,” which they use to back up their claim to their sizable slice of the Antarctic pie: the land located between 25°W and 74°W.
Given the convenient marker at its center, all claims to the Antarctic terminate at the South Pole. And all of these official claims—eight total, with two of those, noncontiguous Norwegian land—are covered by the 1959 Antarctic Treaty, which defends the claims but also bars any future ones. It is an imperfect agreement: Argentina’s claim overlaps both Chile’s and the United Kingdom’s. The overlap with Chile’s claim, about 20 degrees of longitude, is understandable. But with the United Kingdom’s, less so: as the United Kingdom’s border is tied to their South Sandwich Islands, their bid covers the entire Argentine claim, plus much of Chile’s!
Maps come in handy here, as there are no physical borders that follow exact longitude lines and no one is going to send an army down to defend frigid, dangerous, ice-covered land. This map, provided by the Dirección Nacional del Antártico Instituto Antártico Argentino, shows all Argentine base stations located on the continent. Like most other maps of Argentina’s claim, it makes no mention whatsoever of the fact that two other nations also include the attractively curved Antarctic Peninsula and Weddell Sea on their own territorial maps.
In the end, it really doesn’t matter what land belongs to whom. Most of the bases spread out across the land include scientists and workers from a variety of lands, including many nations that don’t claim any of Antarctica at all.
II. THE BRITISH EMPIRE
On that map, you’ll notice that the Falkland Islands are also claimed by Argentina. Antarctica isn’t the only place that both Argentina and Britain claim for themselves. Nor is that section of the planet the only place that has been marked by a British flag. Great Britain is a lot smaller now than it was 125 years ago. But look at any political map of the world. Odds are, the country will appear either in pink or in red, a cartographic nod to the British Empire.
The British Empire, on all maps produced at its height,* is shown in a dusty pink color. According to the National Maritime Museum (located, logically, at Greenwich), the British territory was supposed to be red. The British are always red: Redcoats, the Tudor Rose, Remembrance poppies. Besides, it’s a powerful color. It would stand out proud on an otherwise beige map. But mapmakers protested, you can’t read a black writing on red territory. So it was pink, and nearly always pink.
The map shown here, published in 1886, is a truly remarkable example of what imperial cartography looks like. This is hubris on paper. This is a picture worth a thousand bragging rights.
All of the pink lands, from Victoria to Bombay,** are connected by crisp, attractively bowed lines marked with the distance between: Sydney to London by Panama, 12637 miles. Southampton to Calcutta, 7878 miles. Natal to Mauritius, 1552 miles. At this point, the sun actually would not set on British territory, as at any given time it would be daylight somewhere under British control. This map was published in a weekly newspaper called The Graphic, a highly influential art and news publication that employed folks like Randolph Caldecott* and George Eliot. It is just screaming out to the British public, “See the world? It belongs to you!”
The territory and route lines aren’t the only things on display. Heck, they aren’t even the most obvious things on display. The map is artfully embellished with all manner of imperial subjects, shown in blatant caricature, from bundled-up Eskimos to barely-dressed Africans. Most of them proffer goods as a gift to the viewer, showing what they can contribute to British industry.
Major colonies are seen accompanied by charts that show their area, population and general trade statistics. But my favorite part of this map—the part that best shows that this more statement of power than mere reference—is the inset. China, Mongolia, and Eastern Russia had no British influence; not even one minuscule island on which to stake a flag. So the cartographer, bless his heart, put an entire map of the world as an inset, adding a much-needed blast of pink to the otherwise all-beige map. This particular map shows the world a century previous.
“Look how far we’ve come!” it says, “Imagine what the world will look like a hundred years from now. It’ll be even more pink!”
* And there were a LOT produced at its height
** Mumbai
*** He of the eponymous illustration medal
III. NICARAGUA, COSTA RICA & GOOGLE
A hundred years (and change) after that map, boundaries are still a source of pride and, thus, a source of problems. In November 2010, a Nicaraguan commander invaded Costa Rica after noting an error on a map. What makes this event notable* is that the error was on Google Maps.
The border between Costa Rica and Nicaragua is formed by the San Juan River. The San Juan flows from Lake Nicaragua out to the Caribbean Sea. According to the Cañas-Jerez Treaty of 1858 (as interpreted by US President Grover Cleveland in 1888), Nicaragua controls the river itself, but Costa Rica is allowed to use its waters.
At the very end of the river, where it lets out into the Caribbean, there is an island. Isla Caldero, with the San Juan River on one side and a smaller stream on the other, had until then been solidly Costa Rican. It’s a 60 square mile nature preserve. However, the border between the two countries isn’t exactly friendly. When Commander Eden Pastora looked at Google Maps,** he saw that the border line placed Isla Caldero in Nicaragua.
Costa Rica was occupying Nicaraguan land! Pastora invaded, dotting the island with 50 Nicaraguan soldiers.
But this was not a rogue operation by a crazy person. No, it was entirely backed by the Nicaraguan government, who chose to selectively interpret the aforementioned treaty to match what Pastora saw on the internet. The Vice President was quoted as saying, “We cannot invade our own territory!” Costa Rica, which has no army, responded by sending in local police to arrest the invasion force. If these troops were on Costa Rican land, it was reasoned, then they were governed by Costa Rican law.
Meanwhile, a thoroughly embarrassed Google issued a statement asking that their maps not be used “to decide military actions.”
Costa Rica filed a complaint with the International Court of Justice, who ordered the border placed back to where it was originally understood to be located, and took the step of barring everyone from the island save Costa Rican environmental workers.
Looking at the area in Google Maps today, the border line follows the San Juan River, the Treaty, and the arbitration decision of the International Court of Justice. But it’s easy to see how Postera and the Nicaraguan government were swayed by a single misdrawn line. Google is one of the most powerful companies on Earth, and it’s not unreasonable to take their word as final say. Take a look at this infographic, published by national newspaper La Prensa at the time of the crisis, and compare it to the current border as shown in Google Maps.
This is not a very large area. By the way the river flows, one can see how that line was initially drawn in the software. This is an important reminder that maps are not infallible. A cartographer might make a best guess. There could be incorrect source data. A program might generalize the twists and turns of a river.
IV. DRAWING THE LINE
I’m not going to be kicked out of the profession for saying that, either—it’s just a fact of cartography. You can’t draw a border that will satisfy all parties. But if you’re the one drawing the borders, particularly on a national map, you are shaping the national image, one that many, many people will see and use. Mark Monmonier—an industry-beloved geography professor at Syracuse University and author of a dozen-plus enticingly titled books (examples: “Cartographies of Danger: Mapping Hazards in America,” “Bushmanders & Bullwinkles: How Politicians Manipulate Election Maps & Census Data to Win Elections,” “From Squaw Tit to Whorehouse Meadow: How Maps Name, Claim, and Inflame”***)—acknowledges this issue in maps, particularly borders, in “How to Lie with Maps.” A section called Maps as Symbols of Power and Nationhood begins:
The map is the perfect symbol of the state. If your grand duchy or tribal area seems tired, run-down, and frayed at the edges, simply take a sheet of paper, plot some cities, roads, and physical features, draw a heavy distinct boundary around as much territory as you dare claim, color it in, add a name—perhaps reinforced with the impressive prefix “Republic of”—and presto: you are now the leader of a new, sovereign, autonomous country. Should anyone doubt it, merely point to the map. Not only is your new state on paper, it’s on a map, so it must be real.
And that final bit, that’s what happened in each of these examples: “It’s on a map, so it must be real.” The Argentinians, British, Hondurans and Costa Ricans all wholeheartedly backed the idea that lines and colors on paper are a permanent, binding document. Oh, well.
You can’t please everyone, right?
* Not that any other invasions aren’t, but you know.
** He now denies doing this, but he’s quoted as saying it in the national newspaper. Sooo......
*** This is one of the most entertaining books I’ve ever read about toponyms (yes, there are others, they are dry as hell)
Victoria Johnson is a GIS (geographic information science) analyst and cartographer based in Washington, DC. She graduated from the Department of Geography of George Washington University.