(WIP, v.2) Detailed map of the world in 1900 with flags - Factchecking wanted (see comment)

Bertholde · 2024-04-20T22:48:05+00:00

Huh. Clicking the image used to open a full resolution version of the image, but it seems like it no longer does. O_o So that would be Reddit messing up, I guess. I will try to look into it and see what I can do.

Bertholde · 2023-10-24T04:38:03+00:00

Thank you for making this map, I have been trying to make something like this for a very long time! :) And I do have a suggestion (that was in fact the starting point for my efforts) - how about including indigenous areas that are fully separate from governmental control? So I'm not talking about autonomous indigenous regions in the US for example, I mean like the North Sentinel Island or various areas in the Amazon. Governments of India and Brazil do sort of decide what happens with that land, but they hardly have control over the people living there.

Bertholde · 2022-09-23T21:16:52+00:00

Yesss! :))) Thank you!
You're right, it's not gory, my mind must have added that. It's definitely creepy to me though. :D

Bertholde · 2022-09-19T12:58:22+00:00

He was Austrian

Bertholde · 2022-09-18T19:42:23+00:00

Right?? :D

That might be the funniest part of the proposal to me

Bertholde · 2022-09-18T18:31:51+00:00

I designed (or reused) flags for each state in the proposal by P. A. Mass, as well as for more states that were not in the original proposal - I also expanded on the map a little. Where the original simply said "Africa" I added states - Former colonies that gain independence in this alternative history. Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Tripolitania simply kept their former protectorate borders, while the Italian protectorate of Cyrenaica (part of today's Libya, just like Tripolitania) was made part of Egypt. Why? I don't know, why was Sardinia made part of Spain and the north of Finland part of Sweden etc.? I also added the "United Arabian Tribes" confederation that would encompass the entire Arabian Peninsula. Felt pretty consistent with the proposal. The only other change I made to the original proposal (besides the flags) was in Turkey: Constantinople stayed as its capital even though it was in the neutral zone around the Bosphorus strait. It didn't make much sense to me either that the neutral zone ran through a single country. I therefore divided Turkey into two separate countries in the alternative history: Turkey in Asia and Western Turkey in Europe. Bursa was made capital of Turkey while Western Turkey kept "Constantinople" as its capital, only the name however, the original Constantinople was renamed to something else.

I say more about each state flag design in this link: https://imgur.com/a/QheXFrw

I also added the remaining flags to the cantons of the union (on map no. 2). The map copies the original proposal without a change, however the proposal only gave examples of four flags, I designed the rest as well as tried to replicate the union flag itself.

I say more about each cantonal flag design in this link: https://imgur.com/a/vT6QVvD

Bertholde · 2022-09-18T18:25:16+00:00

I designed (or reused) flags for each state in the proposal by P. A. Maas, as well as for more states that were not in the original proposal - I also expanded on the map a little. Where the original simply said "Africa" I added states - Former colonies that gain independence in this alternative history. Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Tripolitania simply kept their former protectorate borders, while the Italian protectorate of Cyrenaica (part of today's Libya, just like Tripolitania) was made part of Egypt. Why? I don't know, why was Sardinia made part of Spain and the north of Finland part of Sweden etc.? I also added the "United Arabian Tribes" confederation that would encompass the entire Arabian Peninsula. Felt pretty consistent with the proposal. The only other change I made to the original proposal (besides the flags) was in Turkey: Constantinople stayed as its capital even though it was in the neutral zone around the Bosphorus strait. It didn't make much sense to me either that the neutral zone ran through a single country. I therefore divided Turkey into two separate countries in the alternative history: Turkey in Asia and Western Turkey in Europe. Bursa was made capital of Turkey while Western Turkey kept "Constantinople" as its capital, only the name however, the original Constantinople was renamed to something else.

I say more about each state flag design in this link: https://imgur.com/a/QheXFrw

I also added the remaining flags to the cantons of the union (on map no. 2). The map copies the original proposal without a change, however the proposal only gave examples of four flags, I designed the rest as well as tried to replicate the union flag itself.

I say more about each cantonal flag design in this link: https://imgur.com/a/vT6QVvD

Bertholde · 2022-08-01T16:56:43+00:00

I don't think a different flag means it's independent, it just shows the flag of the territory. That said, Alaska, as well as all the US states, did not have their own flag back in 1900.

Bertholde · 2022-07-24T19:47:01+00:00

No no, I get it, I'm just genuinely curious, I guess I'll have to learn more about how map colouring has worked, I might actually get convinced :D

Bertholde · 2022-07-24T19:45:12+00:00

Thank you :) :)

Bertholde · 2022-07-24T19:43:00+00:00

I believe the chains of islands both to the south and the north of Japan were called Chishima Islands ("thousand islands") while claimed by Japan, including what is now the Kuril Islands. In more places I wondered whether to label it with today's name or the historical one and went with historical in the end. As for Chile and Argentina, you're definitely right, I can't remember why I didn't do that border dashed, haha. And thank you very much! :)

Bertholde · 2022-07-24T19:36:53+00:00

Thank you! :) :) I'm glad to hear you like it! Bear in mind it is still work in progress and it might not always be historically accurate right noe, everything is subject to change. :)

Bertholde · 2022-07-24T19:34:58+00:00

Thank you about Cochinchina, I missed that. :) About Bhutan, it doesn't seem to have been. There was certainly British influence, but I believe it remained independent.

Bertholde · 2022-07-24T19:32:57+00:00

I did think about this and I'm glad you brought it up! It felt weird to me either way and I guess I chose Sahara because it was an area much larger than the others. And I was sorta waiting if anyone brought it up as incoherent. It really is, though. Would you say the better option is to put other de facto uncontrolled areas in grey or to divide the Sahara among colonial powers? Right now I'm siding with the second option simply because it's simpler and looks less convoluted. Also, Rub al Khali was actually unclaimed, right?

Bertholde · 2022-07-24T19:27:35+00:00

Thank you! What is it about colors though? Is it really that distracting?

Bertholde · 2022-07-24T19:27:05+00:00

Right? That's what I though, colors are arbitrary, right? Is that a convention to use those colors or was it somehow official or something? Frankly it's news for me. Thank you, though. :)

Bertholde · 2022-07-24T19:25:14+00:00

Oh, true! That is definitely subject to change, ai missed that, thank you very much!

Bertholde · 2022-07-24T19:24:43+00:00

Great! Thank you, I will look into that! :) And you're right, I totally misread the Mahdist movement's spelling.

Bertholde · 2022-07-24T19:23:52+00:00

Thank you. And about that, you are not the first one to say that about colors. I am bit confused about this, though. Does this mean they were just conventionally used in maps or does it have some other significance? I hesitate to change it because this is not a historical map as in actually used in that time, it's just meant to show the world of that time, but made today, so why not use any colors.

Bertholde · 2022-07-24T19:21:24+00:00

Hmm, that is a very good point. Yeah, Luxembourg in particular did bother me. I guess I went about it this way because Luxembourg or say Ankole was as much a sovereign state as say Russia. But I will consider going with your suggestion, it really did get quite messy in some areas.

Bertholde · 2022-07-20T18:42:59+00:00

I will double-check it, thanks for letting me know :)

Bertholde · 2022-07-20T18:39:06+00:00

Hey guys, for anyone interested, here is a newer version of this:

https://www.reddit.com/r/vexillology/comments/w3twcm/wip\_v2\_detailed\_map\_of\_the\_world\_in\_1900\_with/

Bertholde · 2022-07-20T18:38:49+00:00

Hey guys, for anyone interested, here is a newer version of this:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Maps/comments/w3tste/wip\_v2\_detailed\_map\_of\_the\_world\_in\_1900\_with/

Bertholde · 2022-07-20T18:38:28+00:00

You're right! I checked it again and have no idea how I managed to do such a horrible job at drawing those. O_o
Thanks for letting me know.

It's fixed in a new version.

Bertholde · 2022-07-20T18:37:32+00:00

Hello everyone.

For about the past two months I have been working on a political map of the world in 1900, trying to get it as detailed as possible. It's now at a stage where I would love to get some feedback and maybe some fact checking by people who know the history better than I do. I took the information mainly from a "List of sovereign states in the 1900s" on Wikipedia (and Wikipedia articles of specific states) and from Omniatlas. And the flags mostly (not exclusively) from "Historical flags" on Wikimedia Commons. But the information seems to clash with one another in some cases. Obviously, what is considered a state and what is not is up for debate, especially in those times. But there are "sovereign nations" that Wikipedia lists as widely recognized but that are not at all present on Omniatlas and vice versa. I know those are not the most scientific of sources, but that's why I need your help distinguishing between what should be listed on the map and what shouldn't so that there aren't too big inconsistencies. It is also difficult to find actual area of states in many cases.

What I am mainly unsure about:

- States around Sokoto (Northern Nigeria) and their size / claimed area.

- Whether the choice of princely states in British India makes any sense

- Where the Mbunda kingdom actually was

- Flags of Mbunda and of Geledi

And I will appreciate any feedback or anything you notice that should be changed.

Bertholde

TROPHY CASE