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I thought that "political maps" simply meant sovereign state borders (as it does in Czech, German, and possibly other languages as well), and that this would be
by jhgb 4y ago
I thought that "political maps" simply meant sovereign state borders (as it does in Czech, German, and possibly other languages as well), and that this would be about unchanging borders. For example Bohemia has had some pretty stable natural borders. But in this case "political map" means a map of election results? Is that a common usage in English?
- smcl 4y agoIn English it has in my experience just referred to maps that emphasise human layers more than geological ones. Like you would see national borders, state or county borders, settlements marked on the map, rather than contours, terrain etc. I guess this does make it suitable for looking at electoral results but I think the “political” here refers to this - administrative divisions, not election or polling
- gbear605 4y agoAs a native English speaker “political map” means to me both specifically “sovereign state borders” and generally “a map that relates to politics”. If I’m on Google Maps and there’s a button that says “show political map”, I would expect country borders, but if someone tells me “here are some political maps” then I’m expecting anything that has to do with politics.
- t-3 4y agoTo clarify what was said by the other respondents, "political maps" referring to sovereign state borders is a term composed of two words (and is probably one word in some other languages?), while "political maps" referring to maps of politics is two terms composed to express a modification of the idea of a map (which is almost always a political map in the first sense unless otherwise stated).