Sea level rise and coral reef destruction could have an impact on international boundaries, according to a study by University of Sydney researchers published in Environmental Research Letters. Coral reefs form the basis for a number of claims on maritime zones, which could suddenly be in doubt if reef destruction or changes to a reef’s low-water line erase that basis. Press release.
Tag: borders
The Topologist’s Map of the World
Tom created the Topologist’s Map of the World to show how countries connect to each other. Deliberately emulating the style of a T-O map, Tom started with a Voronoi diagram and finished the map in Inkscape. Exclaves are ignored (too complicated), and islands encircle the rest of the map. Among Tom’s observations: “Some countries get really distorted—mostly when they find themselves near the centre of a continent. I’d often thought of Germany as the centre of Europe, but here, Austria and Hungary get really stretched out because they end up bordering countries on opposite sides of the continent.” [r/MapPorn]
The Atlas of Unusual Borders
Out today: Zoran Nikolic’s Atlas of Unusual Borders (Collins), a book that “presents unusual borders, enclaves and exclaves, divided or non-existent cities and islands.” Another compendium of geographical curiosities: a genre we’ve seen before (see, for example, the Atlas of Improbable Places, Atlas Obscura, the Atlas of Remote Islands, the Atlas of Cursed Places, Beyond the Map or Unruly Places/Off the Map) except this time it’s about borders.
Changes to the World Political Map Since 2014
Our friend Alejandro Polanco Masa is updating Maptorian for 2020, and outlines some of the changes to the political map that have taken place since 2014 that he needs to incorporate into his vector map product.
The Washington Post Maps the U.S.-Mexico Border
The print edition of today’s Washington Post maps the fences and walls along the U.S.-Mexico border. The online version, which I seem to have missed when it was posted in October, offers a much more detailed look: it’s an interactive, scrollable map that offers a flyover view of the border, fenced and unfenced, as it passes through farms, ranches, towns and impossibly rugged terrain between the Pacific and the Gulf of Mexico.