The Map Room

A few months back, Tibettruth, a website advocating Tibetan independence, blasted National Geographic for changing to Chinese names of Tibetan places and accused them of violating their own policy of being apolitical. “Such an action, taken we must imagine with the knowledge and possible encouragement and cooperation of China’s regime, surely constitutes a political action on the part of National Geographic?”

Now this one’s tricky. Assuming that National Geographic is colluding with the (wicked) Chinese government is a bit of a stretch: as we’ve seen from other naming disputes, mapmakers are routinely accused of distortion, bias and support for the other side unless they take their side. Supra-national mapmakers like National Geographic and Google simply can’t win these kinds of argument: they’re going to piss someone off no matter what. Thanks to Andy Proehl for the link.

Popular Science pivots from the recent Nicaragua-Costa Rica border dispute to make a point about how digital maps are essentially commercial — rather than governmental or “official” cartography: “The incident raises some interesting issues concerning the future of mapmaking that, thus far, our brave new digital world hasn’t yet been forced to confront. Whereas cartography — particularly the act (or the art) of drawing political lines on geographical charts –- used to be the purview of nations and international bodies, commercial entities like Google, Bing, Mapquest, and other digital services are the principal mapmakers of the 21st century.” Interesting argument.

China’s new, official Map World service has annoyed the Vietnamese government (press release) because it shows the disputed Paracel and Spratly Islands as Chinese territory. Remember, kids: one country’s official boundaries are another country’s diplomatic insult.

Previously: Map World: Online Maps for China.

Ogle Earth has done some digging into the history of the Nicaragua-Costa Rica border — disputes over which date back to the 1850s — and comes to the following conclusion:

Given all this information, we can conclude that the narrative currently dominating the internet is wrong: Nicaragua did not mistakenly enter Costa Rican territory because it relied on Google Maps. [Nicaraguan president Daniel] Ortega’s justification for Nicaragua’s actions appeal to documents from the 19th century; [Edén] Pastora’s mention of Google Maps is just a taunt.

This has to do with recent dredging of the Rio San Juan, not Google’s map data. And Stefan also notes that Bing’s map data in the area isn’t all that precise either. Worth reading in full.

Previously: Nicaraguan Incursion into Costa Rican Territory Blamed on Google Maps Error.

Nicaraguan troops crossed the border into Costa Rica and raised the Nicaraguan flag; the commander apparently cited erroneous maps from Google that showed the territory as belonging to Nicaragua: About.com Geography, Fast Company, Search Engine Land. (The border is shown correctly in Bing Maps.) Google says that they got the erroneous border data from the U.S. State Department, and they’re working on a fix.

This has led to a certain amount of Schadenfreude on Twitter from representatives of competing map providers, which I think is ill-advised. There but for the grace of God, etc. — which is to say that it could have easily been your maps, and probably will be at some point. You don’t see airlines chortling about their competitors’ crashes, do you?

Public Radio International’s The World interviews John Gravois, author of the Washington Monthly article on Google’s attempts to be a neutral arbiter of disputed place names and boundaries. The audio segment is about four and a half minutes long. Via…  •  Continue reading this entry.

On a related note, Google has announced improvements to borders for 60 countries. From the examples given, the borders are in some cases much more precise and higher in resolution, and in other cases more closely reflect the geopolitical reality…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Read The Washington Monthly’s article on the troubles Google has encountered when presenting disputed names and boundaries in Google Earth and Google Maps. The problem, it seems, is that governments and people protesting various boundary and name disputes (Arunachal Pradesh…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Iran’s war to keep people from calling the Persian Gulf by another name — the Arabian Gulf — has opened a new front: map displays on airplanes’ in-flight monitors, with the Iranian government threatening to ban airlines from Iranian airspace…  •  Continue reading this entry.

How Yahoo deals with disputed place names and boundaries in its geodata, using Cyprus (and, more specifically, how to deal with the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus) as an example….  •  Continue reading this entry.

Google explains “the principles we follow in designing our mapping products, particularly as they apply to disputed regions” — e.g., when two countries disagree about what a body of water is named or where a boundary is disputed. “That can…  •  Continue reading this entry.

I told you Iran was campaigning against the use of the name “Arabian Gulf”; this time they’re accusing Google Earth managers of “knowingly or unknowingly” provoking conflict in the region. Wow. Illegal and insulting? Via Ogle Earth….  •  Continue reading this entry.

How does a global mapping provider like Google deal with disputed map names? (Think, for example, of Iran’s campaign in favour of the Persian Gulf instead of the Arabian Gulf, or South Korea’s on behalf of the East Sea instead…  •  Continue reading this entry.

You’re no doubt familiar with the controversies about what gets depicted on a map: disputed territories, disputed names (e.g. Persian Gulf vs. Arabian Gulf, Sea of Japan vs. East Sea). Here’s an interesting article from the International Herald Tribune that…  •  Continue reading this entry.

From Squaw Tit to Whorehouse Meadow: How Maps Name, Claim and Inflame by Mark Monmonier University of Chicago Press, 2006. Hardcover, 229 pp. ISBN 0-226-53465-0 When I was living in Edmonton, I heard the story of Chinaman’s Peak. In 1886,…  •  Continue reading this entry.