Atlas of Borders: Walls, Migrations, and Conflict in 70 Maps

“Over the last fifteen years or so, borders have never been out of the news,” observe Papin, head of Le Monde’s infographics and cartography department, and Tertrais (War Without End), deputy director of the Foundation for Strategic Research, in their introduction to this sobering atlas. Noting that “most often, borders are drawn in blood” with only around 50 countries “created by peaceful secession,” the creatorss focus on highly contentious borders, from Kashmir’s “jigsaw of disputes” to numerous maps related to Israel, Gaza, and the Occupied West Bank. The volume does offer some more lighthearted cartographic curios (the world’s most elevated border is on Mt. Everest, between China and Nepal; for centuries, it was standard to mark a maritime border at “the maximum distance that a cannonball could be fired from the coast”) and spotlights less fraught geopolitical redefinitions (e.g., the evolution of Europe’s Schengen area). Still, it’s best at providing a unique view of current flash points and crises, from Covid and Brexit to Ukraine and Taiwan. One fascinating map spotlights the enormous increase in border walls and fences after the Cold War, from “around fifteen” in the postwar period to “more than seventy” today. This offers fine-grained cartographic context to contemporary conflicts. (Oct.)