Palestine to Africa: How maps lie — and some tell the truth

Google Earth came into existence in 2005. A year later, it experienced a revolutionary tremor.

A Palestinian man from Jenin, Thameen Darby, created the Nakba Layer, mapping Palestinian villages that were destroyed or depopulated in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. The maps showed parts of Palestine that are not even seen in maps created by Palestinian authorities, geographer Linda Quiquivix who researched the Nakba map and maps of Palestine, told media.

The Nakba map of 2006 sparked controversy and anger among some Israelis who reported it to their local police for being an “assault on true geography”.

But what is true geography? Do the maps we see every day accurately represent borders and spaces?

“Not only is it easy to lie with maps, it is essential,” wrote cartographer Mark Monmoneir in his book, How to Lie with Maps.

He showed that condensing complex, three-dimensional spaces onto a two-dimensional sheet of paper is bound to be reductive. Maps are made by people, historically those with power. Hence, they are a projection of how people see the world – projections that are full of preconceived ideas and biases.

However, maps are also deliberately skewed to distort people’s perceptions of spaces and issues, he argued. “A good propagandist knows how to shape opinion by manipulating maps,” wrote Monmoneir.

Propaganda maps were popular during and even before the 20th century when warring nations used cartography to further their war-time agenda, painting the opposing nations as negative caricatures.

Different symbols were used on maps: For example, the octopus with its multiple tentacles was used to depict the aggressor. While a British cartographer used the octopus to depict Russia, a French cartographer depicted Winston Churchill as the mollusc. Propaganda maps were also popular during the Cold War.