Thursday, June 1, 2017

Changes in Human/Political Geography - Why Old Maps Might Confuse You

Alert: There is a quiz below and it is followed by the answers.  Don't look ahead!  Yes, I know you wouldn't but they might.

Pre-ramble: It never fails - I learn much every time I write a blog post or Vic Challenger novel.  When I began  this post I suspected I was talking  about geography.  It occurred too me that there may be different types of geography.  I won’t go into detail of all I learned but here is the top level in brief.  Two main categories of geography are human and physical and both are subdivided into several specialties.   I believe what follows would fall under the main category Human Geography and it’s subcategory of Political Geography.  If you are a geographer and I’m wrong, please leave a comment with correct info.

I do a lot of research for the Vic Challenger novels and much  of it focuses on places.  What we see on maps today is definitely not what Vic saw in the 1920’s.  For example, on the trip to Mongolia (Vic #2) their steamer makes a stop in Formosa.   We call it Taiwan although the island I believe is still Formosa island.  In the 1600’s Holland and Spain had colonies on the island so there was a Dutch Formosa and Spanish Formosa.  Vic and Lin Li spend time with Lin’s relatives in Peking.  Today the maps show Beijing.  I discovered that residents of Beijing have always called it that.  It was the rest of the world who called it Peiping, Pekin, or Peking.  More trivia: Beijing is the longest running political or cultural capital city in the world, 3000 years plus.

In the beginning of Vic: Mongol there is a map.  It shows Peking.  It  also shows Dalan bulag and Urga.  If you look at a modern map you won’t see any of those.  To date, I guess finding the name Dalan bulag has been the most difficult search for Vic’s history.   I learned that most cities in Mongolia have had name changes, often attributable  to who most influenced them - Russia or China.   That led  to look for the names of cities in 1920.  I found zip about Dalan bulag (looking at it’s present day name).  Research librarians in Hawaii didn’t find anything.  They contacted librarians in Mongolia.  They could find no reference so they questioned senior professors at a university.  Some remembered it.  Dalan bulag or 70 Springs.  Today’s maps show Dalanzadgad.   Urga on that map in Vic #2 is the capital, now known as Ulaanbaatar or some maps may show Ulan Bator.  Chu, Vic’s guide in Mongol, points out that what we know as the country of Mongolia was called Outer Mongolia and Inner Mongolia is a region of China.
This is the map at the beginning of Vic: Mongol.  I changed the names of only three cities to their 1920 name. Peking, Dalan bulag and Urga are not on contemporary maps.   Probably several of the others were also called something different from today.


You probably have heard the term “Bohemia”.   Geographically speaking, Bohemia was the traditional name before 1918 for what is now the Czech Republic.

How good are you  at historical political geography?  Here are ten places Vic Challenger could visit in 1920 which have different names now.  Do you know the new names?  Answers below quiz.

1. Petrograd
2. Burma
3. Siam
4. Constantinople
5., Ceylon
6. Persia
7. Abyssinia
8,    Ubangi-Shari (Oubangui-Chari)
9.    Chosun
10.  British Honduras

Answers
1,   St Petersburg. St. Petersburg to Petrograd 1914 to Leningrad 1924 back to St. Petersburg 1991
2.   Burma  to Myanmar 1989
3.  Siam to Thailand (1939)
4.  Constantinople to Istanbul in  1930,  Way back (660 BCE to 324 CE) it was a  Greek colony called Byzantium.  Remember that from world history class?
5.  Ceylon - 1972 the name was changed    to "Free, Sovereign and Independent Republic of Sri Lanka", in 1978 it was changed to "Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka".
6.  Persia to Iran 1935
7.  Abyssinia to Ethiopia  1974.  The Abyssinian Empire also encompassed parts of modern Eritrea, Djibouti, Yemen, Northern Somalia and more.
8.  Ubangi-Shari (Oubangui-Chari) became Central African Republic in 1960.
9.   Chosen was the official name for Korea when it was a Japanese province 1910–45.
10. British Honduras  became Belize in 1973.

If you also find this topic interesting, here are some good resources for more information about this subject.

http://www.historyandheadlines.com/10-significant-places-changed-names/
https://www.thoughtco.com/missing-countries-1435425
http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/historical_countrynames.htm

If you would like to brush up on geography, here are two great sites:
https://www.geolounge.com/what-are-the-branches-of-geography/
https://www.thoughtco.com/geography-4133035

What do you know about where you live?  There were probably small towns nearby which are gone; what we commonly call ghost towns.    There are likely roads which have been renamed, too.   Just imagine what might be changed by 2120!

Thanks for reading.