I'm wondering what the logic is behind the way historical countries are reflected in the world map. Some examples:
- The Russian Empire is mapped over Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Finland, Poland, etc. because all these countries (or parts of them) were Russian until 1917. Some of them had been under Russian rule for many centuries, Finland only for a little over 100 years and Tajikistan only for a few decades.
- British India covers India, Pakistan and Bangladesh but not Myanmar although British India also included Burma for the longest time of its existence.
- The Ottoman Empire is only mapped over Turkey although other countries such as Iraq, Syria, Bulgaria, Albania, etc. belonged to the sultans for hundreds of years.
I find that very confusing because my world map currently suggests that I have a whole bunch of coins from Kyrgyzstan while in reality it's just
What's the reasoning behind this?I don't think it makes sense to map historical empires over each and every modern country that formed a part of it at some point of time. Some countries started small and grew into powerful empires, then declined and collapsed. Borders were revised over and over again, territories changed their owners multiple times, etc. This is particularly confusing for successor states of historical countries that are still referred to by the same name today (Russia-Federation/Empire/Soviet, India-Republic/British, China-PRC/RoC/Empire, Germany-Federal/East/Reich, France-Republic/Kingdom/Empire, etc.).
An easy and transparent solution (in my opinion) would be if we went by the capital or historical core region/province (Russian Empire -> Muscovy/Moscow/St. Petersburg -> Russia; Brit. India -> Calcutta/Delhi -> India; Ottoman Empire -> Istanbul/Anatolia -> Turkey, etc.). It's another story of course when historical states/colonies were so heterogenous that it's hard to make out what the core region was (French West Africa for example).
I'm curious to hear what others think about this?
Best,
Jonas
PS: I'm not sure if this issue has ever been brought up (couldn't find a corresponding thread). I hope I'm not posting duplicate content here.
