4 ms·

I was kind of disappointed that this post isn't about artificial borders that look like straight latitudinal or longitudinal lines. Those kinds of borders are

by etatoby 10y ago

I was kind of disappointed that this post isn't about artificial borders that look like straight latitudinal or longitudinal lines. Those kinds of borders are quite common and I've always thought they say a lot about a country and its past.

JumpCrisscross 10y ago
What do they say?
- jacquesm 10y ago
  Natural or artificial borders, rough date of creation of the border (straighter -> more recent).
- frostburg 10y ago
  Someone drew them on a map with a ruler, often from a great distance, I assume.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  Mostly that there was a conflict (possibly merely political rather than military) that was settled by people who didn't live near the disputed border.
  - andrepd 10y ago
    Not necessarily. For example, these borders exist more often in deserts, for instance (see Sahara and Arizona for instance).
    - dragonwriter 10y ago
      Arizona's not a country, so not quite germane (unless you are talking about its southern border, which is clearly an example of the effect suggested.) In the case of the borders among countries in the Sahara, my understanding is that lots of those were disputed borders settled by people pretty remote from the areas with the straight borders, so I'm not sure they provide a counterexample. "It's a desert" may increase the likelihood that decisions get made by people living far out of the region (since it reduces the number of people living close by), though.
      - adrianratnapala 10y ago
        Looking at this map (http://www.freeworldmaps.net/africa/africa-physical-map.jpg http://www.freeworldmaps.net/africa/africa-physical-map.jpg) I see that nearly all the stright-line borders in Africa are in deserts. Dividing geography with existing populations and long histories into discrete countries is always going to produce tricky ethnic issues. It's just that in Europe those issues were worked out violently over a period of centuries up to and including the second world war. The process is so big, that people don't notice it.
- vec 10y ago
  Long, straight lines for borders usually imply that the territory through which they are drawn was neither well explored nor terribly important to the people drawing them. Sometimes that's because the territory is mostly uninhabited and nobody really has a strong claim to want their particular patch of land to be on one side or the other, but frequently its because the mapmakers either don't know or don't care about the cultural affinities and loyalties of the people who live on or near the proposed border. This is one of the main reasons why a lot of central Africa is a shit show politically. Most of the modern borders were drawn during the colonial era without much consideration as to which tribes and city-states ended up in which countries, so there's not a strong relationship between "nations" (i.e. culturally similar groups of people) and "countries" (i.e. demarcated stretches of land) like there is in most of the rest of the world.
  - stuxnet79 10y ago
    Exactly. Assuming that countries are united on the basis of some common characteristic (language/culture), the likelihood of this unity following a particular longitude or latitude (both European creations) with such mathematical precision is quite small. Straight borders are not exactly prevalent in Central Africa but the existing borders do not make sense in the slightest, and the dysfunction you see is largely a legacy of European meddling in the region. Speaking of West Africa, you don't really have to think hard to figure out why Gambia's borders were drawn the way they were.
  - asimjalis 10y ago
    How does this reasoning apply to the US-Canada border?
    - niftich 10y ago
      It applies perfectly. The 49° N section of the border was set in the Treaty of 1818 [1], at which point all affected regions were still populated by native americans. You can see on this territorial expansion map [2] of the United States, how the lay of the border differs between the first-settled east and the later-settled west. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_1818 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_1818 [2] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/29/UnitedStatesExpansion.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/29/UnitedSt...
- mladenkovacevic 10y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winston%27s_Hiccup https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winston%27s_Hiccup
  - rwmj 10y ago
    Another good one is Bir Tawil, a piece of land that no country wants: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/03/welcome-to-the-land-that-no-country-wants-bir-tawil https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/03/welcome-to-the... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5iJSXaVvao https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5iJSXaVvao
- d_t_w 10y ago
  I came across this post on the Berlin Conference years ago and the title has stayed with me: http://everything2.com/title/Never+Trust+a+Straight+Line+on+a+Map http://everything2.com/title/Never+Trust+a+Straight+Line+on+...

by etatoby 10y ago

JumpCrisscross 10y ago

What do they say?

jacquesm 10y ago
Natural or artificial borders, rough date of creation of the border (straighter -> more recent).
frostburg 10y ago
Someone drew them on a map with a ruler, often from a great distance, I assume.
dragonwriter 10y ago
Mostly that there was a conflict (possibly merely political rather than military) that was settled by people who didn't live near the disputed border.
- andrepd 10y ago
  Not necessarily. For example, these borders exist more often in deserts, for instance (see Sahara and Arizona for instance).
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    Arizona's not a country, so not quite germane (unless you are talking about its southern border, which is clearly an example of the effect suggested.) In the case of the borders among countries in the Sahara, my understanding is that lots of those were disputed borders settled by people pretty remote from the areas with the straight borders, so I'm not sure they provide a counterexample. "It's a desert" may increase the likelihood that decisions get made by people living far out of the region (since it reduces the number of people living close by), though.
    - adrianratnapala 10y ago
      Looking at this map (http://www.freeworldmaps.net/africa/africa-physical-map.jpg http://www.freeworldmaps.net/africa/africa-physical-map.jpg) I see that nearly all the stright-line borders in Africa are in deserts. Dividing geography with existing populations and long histories into discrete countries is always going to produce tricky ethnic issues. It's just that in Europe those issues were worked out violently over a period of centuries up to and including the second world war. The process is so big, that people don't notice it.
vec 10y ago
Long, straight lines for borders usually imply that the territory through which they are drawn was neither well explored nor terribly important to the people drawing them. Sometimes that's because the territory is mostly uninhabited and nobody really has a strong claim to want their particular patch of land to be on one side or the other, but frequently its because the mapmakers either don't know or don't care about the cultural affinities and loyalties of the people who live on or near the proposed border. This is one of the main reasons why a lot of central Africa is a shit show politically. Most of the modern borders were drawn during the colonial era without much consideration as to which tribes and city-states ended up in which countries, so there's not a strong relationship between "nations" (i.e. culturally similar groups of people) and "countries" (i.e. demarcated stretches of land) like there is in most of the rest of the world.
- stuxnet79 10y ago
  Exactly. Assuming that countries are united on the basis of some common characteristic (language/culture), the likelihood of this unity following a particular longitude or latitude (both European creations) with such mathematical precision is quite small. Straight borders are not exactly prevalent in Central Africa but the existing borders do not make sense in the slightest, and the dysfunction you see is largely a legacy of European meddling in the region. Speaking of West Africa, you don't really have to think hard to figure out why Gambia's borders were drawn the way they were.
- asimjalis 10y ago
  How does this reasoning apply to the US-Canada border?
  - niftich 10y ago
    It applies perfectly. The 49° N section of the border was set in the Treaty of 1818 [1], at which point all affected regions were still populated by native americans. You can see on this territorial expansion map [2] of the United States, how the lay of the border differs between the first-settled east and the later-settled west. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_1818 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_1818 [2] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/29/UnitedStatesExpansion.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/29/UnitedSt...
mladenkovacevic 10y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winston%27s_Hiccup https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winston%27s_Hiccup
- rwmj 10y ago
  Another good one is Bir Tawil, a piece of land that no country wants: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/03/welcome-to-the-land-that-no-country-wants-bir-tawil https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/03/welcome-to-the... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5iJSXaVvao https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5iJSXaVvao
d_t_w 10y ago
I came across this post on the Berlin Conference years ago and the title has stayed with me: http://everything2.com/title/Never+Trust+a+Straight+Line+on+a+Map http://everything2.com/title/Never+Trust+a+Straight+Line+on+...