Rendered at 23:43:06 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Cloudflare Workers.
jfengel 23 hours ago [-]
It is remarkable how much it resembles the medieval T&O maps, including putting Jerusalem and the Mediterranean at the center of the world. (Which is what Mediterranean means.) And the East at the top (where we get "orient" from).
I am sure they knew that and the allusion is deliberate.
cwnyth 20 hours ago [-]
"Orient" does not have anything to do with the top of the map. It refers to the rising of the sun ("oriens" in Latin means "rising", from orior, and "occidens" means "setting" when referring to the sun). Fun fact, the Greek word for orior is ἀνατέλλω and is where we ultimately get the word "Anatolia" from, since for the Greeks that's where the sun rises.
broken-kebab 11 hours ago [-]
This is moderately popular misconception which seems to be prevalent in English-speaking sources. Latin "mediterraneus" means simply between-lands.
And "orient" is not "top" as other commenter already noticed.
roenxi 21 hours ago [-]
The obvious link between the two maps is neither has much concept of landmass size.The Americas are unknown in the first and unsatisfying imbalanced in the later map (Belize & El Salvadore, something must be done!). With all that in mind, it seems possible it could be a coincidence driven by similar constraints on both maps.
The only choice here seems to be whether the containing shape is a circle, a triangle or a square.
radpanda 1 days ago [-]
Since the creation of that map Canada and Denmark have gained a border (Hans Island). That barely registers on any traditional map but would dramatically rearrange this.
EDIT: Or maybe it wouldn’t? I don’t see Russia’s border with Lithuania and Poland reflected (due to Kaliningrad) so maybe only the “main” part of a country is considered?
radpanda 23 hours ago [-]
Looking at the author’s Reddit post apparently things like exclaves were intentionally omitted for simplicity’s sake.
Still doesn’t explain some things, like, why is Singapore (an island) shown on the map as having a border with Malaysia? Other countries connected by bridge or causeway (Denmark and Sweden, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain) aren’t shown as sharing a border.
Someone 10 hours ago [-]
> apparently things like exclaves were intentionally omitted for simplicity’s sake.
That may not be just for simplicity’s sake. If you include “things like enclaves”, the graph may not be planar.
For example, Belgium, France, Germany and the Kingdom of the Netherlands all border each other (France and the Netherlands on Saint Martin (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Martin_(island)), so if you take ”the Kingdom of the Netherlands” as a node, you can’t draw the graph on a plane.
You just opened my mind. I was absolutely convinced that Singapore did share a land border somewhere.
DonaldFisk 9 hours ago [-]
There's some simplification. I was initially puzzled about why it was United Kingdom and not Great Britain, as part of UK is on the island of Ireland. Also absent are countries that aren't fully independent, the largest being Greenland. Singapore is plain wrong. It doesn't share a land border with Malaysia.
Canada was my first guess, and I was able to get the rest of the Western hemisphere after that. I'm looking now for Portugal which i think should be pretty obvious, but I must be missing something.
Edit. Also, I was wondering why there was no French Guyana, but being part of France means it's not a separate country. However, in that case France should share a border with Brazil. I wonder what other such quirks are in this map.
dlenski 19 hours ago [-]
In addition to sharing a land border with Brazil and Suriname (via French Guiana), France also shares a land border with the Netherlands… on the island of St Martin/Sint Maarten.
Also, there's a new land border between Canada and Denmark, and not depicted on this map, since the border did not formally come into existence until 2022. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Island#Resolution
gus_massa 12 hours ago [-]
I can't find Portugal. I expect
Portugal----Spain-+-----------+-France----[Many ¿7?]≡≡≡≡[Whatever, I give up]
\-Andorra-/
but I can't find it.
I think the map in the main article and the graph in the game ignore exclaves and other weird topological parts of countries, but they may be ignoring or counting them in different ways.
hydrogen7800 11 hours ago [-]
Spain has another land border.
gus_massa 10 hours ago [-]
Oh! They included Morocco but not the United Kingdom. an interesting editorial decision.
Anecdote time: A few years ago we made a math exposition and we wanted to show something about the Four Color Theorem. We were advice to not use a real map, because each country has their own claims and somebody somewhere may complain.
hydrogen7800 10 hours ago [-]
>They included Morocco but not the United Kingdom
Yes that confused me too. If they included Morocco, then France should border Brazil and Suriname.
kzrdude 15 hours ago [-]
I had a different strategy, starting with lots of connections, so I found Russia and China first. Albeit playing with a lot of mistakes.
I just did my first second-hand inference and it was satisfying. Turkey borders Bulgaria and Greece, don't know which is which, but those two both border North Macedonia, which was a correct guess.
I was wondering a few days ago, if for teaching geography, one might collect compelling images/stories, which combined, might weave a familiarity with the layout of the planet?
Commonplace, is Earth having a water hemisphere, and landed one. Or the now-distant but coupled shapes of South America and Africa. The rumpled bedsheets of the Indian plate collision. Then there's a green crescent of green China, SE Asia, and India, curved around a contrasting desert China and the Stans. Maybe China/Mongolia as a wedge inserted between Russian and SE Asia plus India, poking the Stans, injecting Silk Roads towards the Seas. The Blue Banana of Europe. Ring of Fire. Great Plains topographic funneling and tornados. Africa now desert and green, was khaki/green and less green, and Last Glacial Maximum was desert and dry.
TFA map is another.
Thoughts?
maartenscholl 23 hours ago [-]
The Netherlands and France share a border on the island of Saint Martin
didgeoridoo 23 hours ago [-]
France also borders Suriname and Brazil at French Guiana, Spain borders the UK at Gibraltar (and Morocco at Ceuta and Melilla)… there’s lots of pub-quiz-winning ones sprinkled about!
xigoi 16 hours ago [-]
The map clearly says that it ignores exclaves.
ginko 10 hours ago [-]
If the map ignores exclaves why does the UK border Ireland?
Symbiote 5 hours ago [-]
Northern Ireland isn't an exclave.
didgeoridoo 2 hours ago [-]
By the “connected via territorial waters” rule, neither is Ceuta.
Probably would have made the diagram a lot messier, though.
kens 19 hours ago [-]
Curiously, Eswatini (formerly Swaziland) is capitalized eSwatini, as if it is an e-commerce site.
tossOutSub 15 hours ago [-]
In siSwati it is known as eSwatini
Rury 9 hours ago [-]
Seems incomplete? Like several island nations are missing (e.g. Bahrain).
Lerc 23 hours ago [-]
Notably Oman, and Iran border seperate bodies of water.
That would make things a lot simpler.
[Edit, I stand corrected, there's a little bit that goes up to Iran and nips off a corner)]
frollogaston 20 hours ago [-]
Reminds me of some custom Diplomacy maps
tocs3 5 days ago [-]
I really like this and may have to try to make a poster.
mcookly 4 days ago [-]
This is super cool. I'd love to see it in a vintage style like that of old T-O maps!
arunix 10 hours ago [-]
There's another version of this where the islands are placed in a more natural way nearer to their continental neighbours:
To be fair, in topology there’s no concept of distance.
xyzsparetimexyz 22 hours ago [-]
Albania and Bosnia share a small border
lastofthemojito 21 hours ago [-]
I don't think that's true and Googling for it didn't come up with anything. Croatia and Montenegro do share a border but that must run afoul of the map creator's "no exclaves" rule as that bit of Croatia isn't contiguous with the rest of Croatia.
ForOldHack 18 hours ago [-]
Yourube search for strange borders. The number of enclaves is staggering. Upon further inspection... fail.
xigoi 16 hours ago [-]
The map explicitly says that it ignores exclaves.
kittikitti 19 hours ago [-]
A zionist map is one where Israel is in the center.
frollogaston 8 hours ago [-]
The Middle East really is in the center of the Europe-Asia-Africa land mass though. Also Egypt is more centered.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T_and_O_map
I am sure they knew that and the allusion is deliberate.
And "orient" is not "top" as other commenter already noticed.
The only choice here seems to be whether the containing shape is a circle, a triangle or a square.
EDIT: Or maybe it wouldn’t? I don’t see Russia’s border with Lithuania and Poland reflected (due to Kaliningrad) so maybe only the “main” part of a country is considered?
https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/gxwn5r/oc_the_topo...
Still doesn’t explain some things, like, why is Singapore (an island) shown on the map as having a border with Malaysia? Other countries connected by bridge or causeway (Denmark and Sweden, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain) aren’t shown as sharing a border.
That may not be just for simplicity’s sake. If you include “things like enclaves”, the graph may not be planar.
For example, Belgium, France, Germany and the Kingdom of the Netherlands all border each other (France and the Netherlands on Saint Martin (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Martin_(island)), so if you take ”the Kingdom of the Netherlands” as a node, you can’t draw the graph on a plane.
An alternative is to see the countries of the Netherlands and St. Maarten as separate; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_the_Netherlands). That would remove this counterexample, but others may exist.
[spoiler alert] Try finding Canada
Edit. Also, I was wondering why there was no French Guyana, but being part of France means it's not a separate country. However, in that case France should share a border with Brazil. I wonder what other such quirks are in this map.
Also, there's a new land border between Canada and Denmark, and not depicted on this map, since the border did not formally come into existence until 2022. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Island#Resolution
I think the map in the main article and the graph in the game ignore exclaves and other weird topological parts of countries, but they may be ignoring or counting them in different ways.
Anecdote time: A few years ago we made a math exposition and we wanted to show something about the Four Color Theorem. We were advice to not use a real map, because each country has their own claims and somebody somewhere may complain.
Yes that confused me too. If they included Morocco, then France should border Brazil and Suriname.
I just did my first second-hand inference and it was satisfying. Turkey borders Bulgaria and Greece, don't know which is which, but those two both border North Macedonia, which was a correct guess.
Commonplace, is Earth having a water hemisphere, and landed one. Or the now-distant but coupled shapes of South America and Africa. The rumpled bedsheets of the Indian plate collision. Then there's a green crescent of green China, SE Asia, and India, curved around a contrasting desert China and the Stans. Maybe China/Mongolia as a wedge inserted between Russian and SE Asia plus India, poking the Stans, injecting Silk Roads towards the Seas. The Blue Banana of Europe. Ring of Fire. Great Plains topographic funneling and tornados. Africa now desert and green, was khaki/green and less green, and Last Glacial Maximum was desert and dry.
TFA map is another.
Thoughts?
Probably would have made the diagram a lot messier, though.
That would make things a lot simpler.
[Edit, I stand corrected, there's a little bit that goes up to Iran and nips off a corner)]
https://kottke.org/22/12/the-topologists-map-of-the-world