Censorship Of Maps
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Cartographic censorship is the deliberate modification of publicly available
map A map is a symbolic depiction of interrelationships, commonly spatial, between things within a space. A map may be annotated with text and graphics. Like any graphic, a map may be fixed to paper or other durable media, or may be displayed on ...
s in order to disguise, remove, or obfuscate potentially strategic locations or buildings, such as
military base A military base is a facility directly owned and operated by or for the military or one of its branches that shelters military equipment and personnel, and facilitates training and operations. A military base always provides accommodations for ...
s,
power plant A power station, also referred to as a power plant and sometimes generating station or generating plant, is an industrial facility for the electricity generation, generation of electric power. Power stations are generally connected to an electr ...
s or
transmitter In electronics and telecommunications, a radio transmitter or just transmitter (often abbreviated as XMTR or TX in technical documents) is an electronic device which produces radio waves with an antenna (radio), antenna with the purpose of sig ...
s. Sensitive objects and places have been removed from maps since historic times, sometimes as a
disinformation Disinformation is misleading content deliberately spread to deceive people, or to secure economic or political gain and which may cause public harm. Disinformation is an orchestrated adversarial activity in which actors employ strategic dece ...
tactic in times of war, and also to serve competitive political and economic interests, such as during the
Age of Discovery The Age of Discovery (), also known as the Age of Exploration, was part of the early modern period and overlapped with the Age of Sail. It was a period from approximately the 15th to the 17th century, during which Seamanship, seafarers fro ...
when strategic geographic information was highly sought after. In modern times requests for censorship are sent to
Google Earth Google Earth is a web mapping, web and computer program created by Google that renders a 3D computer graphics, 3D representation of Earth based primarily on satellite imagery. The program maps the Earth by superimposition, superimposing satelli ...
for certain sites that are deemed to pose security risks for national governments.


History

The renowned map historian, J.B. Harley, wrote in 1989:
Throughout the history of modern
cartography Cartography (; from , 'papyrus, sheet of paper, map'; and , 'write') is the study and practice of making and using maps. Combining science, aesthetics and technique, cartography builds on the premise that reality (or an imagined reality) can ...
in the West ... there have been numerous instances of where maps have been falsified, of where they have been censored or kept secret, or of where they have surreptitiously contradicted the rules of their proclaimed scientific status.
The early policy of secrecy proved difficult to enforce and soon maps became subject to censorship and falsification. Cartographic disinformation has long been a weapon in political propaganda, military counter-intelligence and covert diplomacy. Maps are weapons of war and the falsification of maps is a legitimate ''ruse de guerre''. However, such Machiavellian arts were not confined to wartime, particularly in an age when there was very little peacetime. Fake maps were a weapon for all seasons, to be used against all rivals, political and commercial.


North America

In October 1941, before the United States entered World War II, President
Franklin D. Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), also known as FDR, was the 32nd president of the United States, serving from 1933 until his death in 1945. He is the longest-serving U.S. president, and the only one to have served ...
announced that he had "a secret map" of South America titled "Luftverkehrsnetz der Vereinigten Staaten Süd-Amerikas Hauptlinien". He said the map had been "made in Germany by Hitler's government" and that it showed that the Nazis had designs against the United States. It was a fake map, probably created by British intelligence agents, but Roosevelt may have thought it was genuine.


Europe

In the
Age of Discovery The Age of Discovery (), also known as the Age of Exploration, was part of the early modern period and overlapped with the Age of Sail. It was a period from approximately the 15th to the 17th century, during which Seamanship, seafarers fro ...
there was a premium on geographic information: ports of call for wood and fresh water, deep natural harbours, shorter passages and straits.


Germany

Censorship of maps was also used in former
East Germany East Germany, officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was a country in Central Europe from Foundation of East Germany, its formation on 7 October 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with West Germany (FRG) on ...
, especially for the areas near the border to
West Germany West Germany was the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) from its formation on 23 May 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with East Germany on 3 October 1990. It is sometimes known as the Bonn Republi ...
in order to make attempts of
defection In politics, a defector is a person who gives up allegiance to one state in exchange for allegiance to another, changing sides in a way which is considered illegitimate by the first state. More broadly, defection involves abandoning a person, ca ...
more difficult.


Netherlands

The
Dutch East India Company The United East India Company ( ; VOC ), commonly known as the Dutch East India Company, was a chartered company, chartered trading company and one of the first joint-stock companies in the world. Established on 20 March 1602 by the States Ge ...
, or VOC, had a mission to censor cartographic knowledge of newly explored regions. It complained when ships owned by its rival, the Australische Compagnie, entered the Pacific by a new passage round
Cape Horn Cape Horn (, ) is the southernmost headland of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago of southern Chile, and is located on the small Hornos Island. Although not the most southerly point of South America (which is Águila Islet), Cape Horn marks the nor ...
, named the Le Maire Strait. The VOC persuaded the Dutch government to prohibit the publication of this latest geographical information. However, the injunction was lifted after twelve months and Willem Blaeu and other cartographers were permitted to publish revised maps.


Portugal

The German cartographer Henricus Martellus made his famous mappamundi (World Map), soon after the Portuguese navigator,
Bartolomeu Dias Bartolomeu Dias ( – 29 May 1500) was a Portuguese mariner and explorer. In 1488, he became the first European navigator to round the Cape Agulhas, southern tip of Africa and to demonstrate that the most effective southward route for ships lies ...
, sailed round the southern tip of Africa. The map is based on a Portuguese prototype (which has not survived), but the coast of southern Africa is greatly extended and dislocated. Some scholars have suggested that this distortion is a result of misinformation circulated by King John II. His purpose was to pretend that the new eastern sea route to Asia and was far longer than it actually is, in order to discourage foreign interlopers from profiting from Portuguese discoveries.
Christopher Columbus Christopher Columbus (; between 25 August and 31 October 1451 – 20 May 1506) was an Italians, Italian explorer and navigator from the Republic of Genoa who completed Voyages of Christopher Columbus, four Spanish-based voyages across the At ...
may have consulted Martellus' map (or a copy) before leaving Spain in 1492 to find the western route to Asia.


Russia

In 1765, the Swiss geographer Samuel Engel, accused the Russian government of deliberately falsifying maps by extending
Siberia Siberia ( ; , ) is an extensive geographical region comprising all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has formed a part of the sovereign territory of Russia and its predecessor states ...
30° eastward. Its purpose, according to Engel, was to exaggerate the length and difficulty of the Northeast Passage along the arctic coast, in the hope of discouraging rival European merchants from attempting this route to the Pacific and China.


United Kingdom


Francis Drake

When
Francis Drake Sir Francis Drake ( 1540 – 28 January 1596) was an English Exploration, explorer and privateer best known for making the Francis Drake's circumnavigation, second circumnavigation of the world in a single expedition between 1577 and 1580 (bein ...
sailed on his voyage round the world in 1577, he was given clear instructions that "none shall make any charts or descriptions of the said voyage." Furthermore, all charts made or captured from foreigners had to be delivered to the Lords of Her Majesty's Privy Council. Two hundred years later, the Admiralty's instructions to Captain Cook were almost identical.


Captain Cook

The British Admiralty sent
James Cook Captain (Royal Navy), Captain James Cook (7 November 1728 – 14 February 1779) was a British Royal Navy officer, explorer, and cartographer famous for his three voyages of exploration to the Pacific and Southern Oceans, conducted between 176 ...
on his three Pacific voyages during the Second Hundred Years War when France and Britain were vying for commercial supremacy and control of shipping lanes around the world. Cook has been accused of making "major mistakes in his charting", such as depicting "Stewart Island as a peninsula, and the failure to determine the insular character of Tasmania". However, Cook was the greatest navigator of his day and too experienced to make such errors. During his three Pacific voyages, Cook was on a mission to keep secret any strategic discoveries he made such as off-shore islands and deep, natural harbours. He would report such prizes to the Admiralty when he returned to London, but meanwhile he would omit them from his journal and charts. Cook's program of disinformation was first proposed in the book ''Lying for the Admiralty: Captain Cook's ''Endeavour'' Voyage'' (2018). In 1770, Cook found
Sydney Harbour Port Jackson, commonly known as Sydney Harbour, is a ria, natural harbour on the east coast of Australia, around which Sydney was built. It consists of the waters of Sydney Harbour, Middle Harbour, North Harbour and the Lane Cove River, Lane ...
by walking overland from
Botany Bay Botany Bay (Dharawal language, Dharawal: ''Kamay'') is an open oceanic embayment, located in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, south of the Sydney central business district. Its source is the confluence of the Georges River at Taren Point a ...
, along an Aboriginal track connecting the two inlets. He also identified
Bass Strait Bass Strait () is a strait separating the island state of Tasmania from the Mainland Australia, Australian mainland (more specifically the coast of Victoria (Australia), Victoria, with the exception of the land border across Boundary Islet). The ...
which separates
Tasmania Tasmania (; palawa kani: ''Lutruwita'') is an island States and territories of Australia, state of Australia. It is located to the south of the Mainland Australia, Australian mainland, and is separated from it by the Bass Strait. The sta ...
from mainland Australia. However, off-shore islands can provide a base from which operations could be mounted by a hostile power so he concealed Tasmania's insularity. Similarly, Cook depicted New Zealand's
Stewart Island Stewart Island (, ' glowing skies', officially Stewart Island / Rakiura, formerly New Leinster) is New Zealand's third-largest island, located south of the South Island, across Foveaux Strait. It is a roughly triangular island with a la ...
as a peninsula, concealing
Foveaux Strait Foveaux Strait ( ; ) is a strait that separates Stewart Island from the South Island of New Zealand. The width of the strait ranges from about , and the depth varies between . The strait was first charted by an American Seal hunting, sealer, O ...
. Captain Cook's fake maps were not fake enough for the Admiralty. It wanted even greater concealment of politically sensitive discoveries when it commissioned Dr. Hawkesworth to write the official account of Cook's voyages. Thus the Admiralty's engraver deliberately altered and refined Cook's manuscript charts when preparing them for printing. Hawkesworth's "Journals" was a bestseller in Europe, and the Admiralty's fake maps misled Britain's rivals for decades.


Cold War

In the United Kingdom, during the
Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...
period and shortly after, a number of military installations (including " prohibited places") did not appear on commercially issued
Ordnance Survey The Ordnance Survey (OS) is the national mapping agency for Great Britain. The agency's name indicates its original military purpose (see Artillery, ordnance and surveying), which was to map Scotland in the wake of the Jacobite rising of ...
mapping. This practice was effectively curtailed with the mass availability of satellite imagery. Another aspect of map censorship in the UK is that the internal layout of HM Prison facilities were not shown on public OS mapping.


False altitudes

A variant of censorship of maps is putting in false altitudes. This can be important for predicting
flooding A flood is an overflow of water ( or rarely other fluids) that submerges land that is usually dry. In the sense of "flowing water", the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide. Floods are of significant concern in agriculture, civi ...
. In
World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
many German soldiers were killed in
Belgium Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...
after their camps were flooded, even though the maps used by German military indicated the camp sites were not prone to flooding.


Modern use

Censorship of maps is today still often applied, although it is less effective in the age of satellite picture services. A "dead map" is a term often applied to sensitive government maps that show the location of top secret facilities and other highly sensitive installations within a country. Russia, the United States and Great Britain all have such maps.
Google Earth Google Earth is a web mapping, web and computer program created by Google that renders a 3D computer graphics, 3D representation of Earth based primarily on satellite imagery. The program maps the Earth by superimposition, superimposing satelli ...
censors places that may be of special security concern. The following is a selection of such concerns: * Former
India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...
n president
Abdul Kalam Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam ( ; 15 October 193127 July 2015) was an Indian Aerospace engineering, aerospace scientist and statesman who served as the president of India from 2002 to 2007. Born and raised in a Muslim family in Ramesw ...
had expressed concern over the availability of
high-resolution Image resolution is the level of detail of an image. The term applies to digital images, film images, and other types of images. "Higher resolution" means more image detail. Image resolution can be measured in various ways. Resolution quantifies ...
pictures of sensitive locations in India. * Indian Space Research Organization says that Google Earth poses a security threat to India and seeks dialogue with
Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...
officials. * The
South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the southern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders North Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, with the Yellow Sea to the west and t ...
n government has expressed concern that the software offers images of the
presidential palace A presidential palace is the official residence of the president in some countries. Some presidential palaces were once the official residences to monarchs in former monarchies that were preserved during those states' transition into republics. ...
and various
military installation A military base is a facility directly owned and operated by or for the military or one of its branches that shelters military equipment and personnel, and facilitates training and Military operation, operations. A military base always provides ...
s that could possibly be used by
North Korea North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders China and Russia to the north at the Yalu River, Yalu (Amnok) an ...
. * Operators of the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor in
Sydney Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...
,
Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...
asked Google to censor high resolution pictures of the facility. However, they later withdrew the request. * The government of
Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...
also expressed concern over the availability of high-resolution pictures of sensitive locations in its territory, and applied pressure to have Israeli territory (and the Occupied Territories held by Israeli forces) appear in less clear detail. * The Vice President of the United States' residence ( Naval Observatory) in Washington, DC has been pixelated, as has the Federal Gold Depository at
Fort Knox Fort Knox is a United States Army installation in Kentucky, south of Louisville and north of Elizabethtown, Kentucky, Elizabethtown. It is adjacent to the United States Bullion Depository (also known as Fort Knox), which is used to house a larg ...
. * From June 2007 until January 2009, downtown
Washington, DC Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and Federal district of the United States, federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from ...
was shown using
USGS The United States Geological Survey (USGS), founded as the Geological Survey, is an government agency, agency of the United States Department of the Interior, U.S. Department of the Interior whose work spans the disciplines of biology, geograp ...
aerial photography Aerial photography (or airborne imagery) is the taking of photographs from an aircraft or other flight, airborne platforms. When taking motion pictures, it is also known as aerial videography. Platforms for aerial photography include fixed-wi ...
from the spring 2002, while the rest of the District of Columbia was shown using imagery from 2005. Censorship of maps is also applied by
Google Maps Google Maps is a web mapping platform and consumer application offered by Google. It offers satellite imagery, aerial photography, street maps, 360° interactive panorama, interactive panoramic views of streets (Google Street View, Street View ...
, where certain areas are greyed out or areas are purposely left outdated with old imagery. In
Lebanon Lebanon, officially the Republic of Lebanon, is a country in the Levant region of West Asia. Situated at the crossroads of the Mediterranean Basin and the Arabian Peninsula, it is bordered by Syria to the north and east, Israel to the south ...
, all maps concerning the country are property of the Lebanese Army and are issued by the Directory of Geographic affairs of the Lebanese military. It is considered a felony to reproduce whole or portions of maps without the permission of the military, although maps can be issued to certain universities and urban design schools for use by students and can be issued to civilian upon presenting certain documents. A notice is written on the maps prohibiting reproduction, copying or sale of the map and that it should be returned to the Ministry of National Defense upon request. This policy is meant to prohibit terrorists, outlaws, and entities that are at war with Lebanon from obtaining those maps.


Similar cases

Lists of air traffic obstacles may not be published by many countries as many of them are strategically important (chimneys of power stations, radio masts, etc.)


Example

* Hiding a VLF-transmitter of Russian Navy on a map. Compar

with satellite imag


See also

*
Internet censorship Internet censorship is the legal control or suppression of what can be accessed, published, or viewed on the Internet. Censorship is most often applied to specific internet domains (such as ''Wikipedia.org'', for example) but exceptionally may ...
* Cartographic aggression *
Cartographic generalization Cartographic generalization, or map generalization, includes all changes in a map that are made when one derives a scale (map), smaller-scale map from a larger-scale map or map data. It is a core part of cartographic design. Whether done manually b ...
* Cartographic propaganda * Paper street * Phantom island * Phantom settlement * Restrictions on geographic data in China * Satellite map images with missing or unclear data


References


Sources

* * * {{cite book, chapter=Maps, Knowledge, and Power, first=John Brian, last=Harley, author-link=John Brian Harley, title=Iconography of Landscape: Essays on the Symbolic Representation, Design, and Use of Past Environments, editor1-first=Denis, editor1-last=Cosgrove, editor2-first=Stephens, editor2-last=Daniels, location=Cambridge, publisher=Cambridge University Press, year=1988b, isbn= 978-0-521-38915-0 Censorship Cartography Propaganda