How do maps handle disputed borders?

Mick Ashworth: The primary considerations are just what is happening on the ground, largely. You’ve got to consider a lot of sensitivities. There are obviously sensitivities on both sides of a geopolitical or territorial dispute. Cartographers generally would tend to look at what the de facto situation is; what’s actually happening on the ground. They’d look at how widely recognized that territory is and the definition of its boundary. They’d also consider the view of where they’re publishing their maps. They’d look at the view of their own governments, as well, which could vary from publishing domain to publishing domain.

Well, they’re dealt with as fairly and as neutrally as possible. I edited “The Times Atlas of the World” for a long time, and we had to be incredibly careful in how we represented things and be careful not to upset too many people. You can’t please everybody all of the time, obviously. There is an interesting aspect to this Crimea story now. There’s a lot more flexibility within the digital realm for Apple and Google to show things differently depending on where their users are logging in.

There’s so many that are contested in one way or another. The more you look into where boundaries came from, the more you see why there are issues now. I’ve been looking recently at quite a lot of the origins of international boundaries in Africa, for example. After the scramble for Africa, the slow and steady appearance of new borders across the continent is fascinating. The fact that they were drawn by officials hundreds of miles away from where the borders are gives you an insight into just why there were problems there and why there are continuing problems in many parts of the world.

Yeah, it has, and names are right up there with boundaries as to one of the most contentious issues to deal with. My understanding is that although Google doesn’t show Crimea as part of Russia, they do use Russian transliterations of the local names for Crimea rather than Ukrainian name forms, as well. So they’re maybe hedging their bets a bit there. This issue of choosing the right name form is fraught with difficulty. As soon as a place is named by cartographers or is named by its owner, in theory, it does add credence to their ownership of the place because it can deeply affect the people living in those areas. The Persian Gulf is a case in point where the Iranians insist that it should be called the Persian Gulf everywhere. Arabic countries referer to as the Arabian Gulf, other publishers call it the Gulf. There’s all sorts of sensitivities about what it implies in terms of ownership and control.

Who knows? I’m not not arguing for such change, but such geopolitical change across the world is always good for cartographers, I would say that.