politically-loaded maps: sputtering flemishly

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > politically-loaded maps: sputtering flemishly

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

brakeless posted:

Well, they tried their best.

To be fair, they didn't actually try for the "Maximalist" idea. The Continuation War really was just an attempt to take back the land they had lost in the Winter War, not one of those insane nationalist projects which floated around in Europe in the 20th century.

# ¿ Feb 2, 2013 17:09

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# ¿ May 2, 2024 08:48

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

brakeless posted:

Well yeah, I wasn't being 100% serious, although the bolded part isn't strictly true. The goal of the offensive phase was to take and hold the so-called three-isthmus line, which you can see 2/3rds complete, quite far beyond the pre-1939 borders. There was quite a bit of nationalist project tied up in the war too.

Were they actually planning to annex those territories, or were they just bargaining chips for negotiations with Stalin though? The latter is the story I've always been told/have read, but of course anti-Communist and nationalist rhetoric might have mislead me.

# ¿ Feb 2, 2013 18:12

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Frostwerks posted:

I think I've been looking at google earth a lot and found the geography of the mideast way more varied than at first I thought? It really is way more interesting than its typically portrayed and temperate jungles are amazingly cool.

e: again, just not innately political

That makes sense, though it would probably be a better fit for a "The World as we don't know it"-thread. Which I guess could actually be kind of cool, approaching misconceptions about places from a different angle.

# ¿ Feb 3, 2013 12:15

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Highspeeddub posted:

Why is Sweden gone? Is this a Danish wet dream?

Then Scania would still be there, and returned to Denmark.

# ¿ Feb 6, 2013 12:41

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This Jacket Is Me posted:

I'm bad at/casually interested in ethnography, and I remember reading about Slav tribes living south of Denmark during the first century, noted in correspondences amongst Roman military leaders. Is this not true, or is there some distinction between North and South Slavs that's applicable?

According to wikipedia, this group was likely misidentified by Ptolemy, and actually belonged to some other language groups than the Slavs. I'm guessing they were Germanic, since the area is pretty much in the heart of Germanic culture of the time.

# ¿ Feb 8, 2013 13:32

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De Nomolos posted:

Huh? How does a Hungarian nationalist group justify taking Croatia? Eastern Europe Catholic solidarity? Or is it just "gently caress it, we need a port"?

Like usual in Europe: History!

# ¿ Feb 9, 2013 20:30

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System Metternich posted:

Per capita or absolute consumption?

I think it's pretty obvious that it's absolute; per capita makes no sense on these maps, not to mention that the Chinese would have to be drinking about 3 liters of pure alcohol a day for it to be correct in that case.

# ¿ Feb 16, 2013 14:05

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univbee posted:

I like how Germany takes over Newfoundland and Labrador and pretty much decides that's good enough.

Since the place only joined Canada in '49, it's not really that strange - the Germans obviously just grabbed the British colonies in the North Atlantic.

Uncle Jam posted:

They picked a really unsettling color bar.
Its interesting the bright spot along the southern Himalayas, I wonder if that is due to the influx of climbing tourists.

Or maybe it's because the Indo-Gangetic Plain is inhabited by about 1 billion people.

# ¿ Feb 17, 2013 19:54

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Boon posted:

What are the atmospheric patterns like up there? I'm imagining just clouds and clouds of radiation drifting over continental Europe.

Well, the British gave us Scandinavians acid rain with all their lovely power plants, so I'm guessing that's where the majority of the radiation is going to go as well.

Farecoal posted:

Assuming all that melted ice hadn't caused Denmark to disappear, although I guess they can always relocate to temperate Greenland.

The polar ice is in water, it won't cause any sea level rise when it melts. If you add Greenland, you get a 7 meters sea level rise, but that's going to be a problem for pretty much everyone, given that most people live on the coast. Denmark certainly isn't a particularly vulnerable case here. Denmark might be a pretty flat/low-lying country, but it's not like we're in the same boat as the Netherlands.

# ¿ Feb 19, 2013 12:33

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Deceitful Penguin posted:

Also the moment that Greenland gets a load of money they're gonna go the way of the F�reyjar and go for Independence. Gods know the only thing the danes gave them was booze, venereal diseases and a slightly better way to count over, what, 10?

10 years later, the US "intervenes to protect American citizens" and establishes a permanent protectorate in Greenland.

# ¿ Feb 19, 2013 13:36

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Deceitful Penguin posted:

C'mon man, don't be absurd, they're whiiii, wait no, most of them aren't. Although It's hard to see the place go the way of Hawaii or whatev.

Maybe I just don't have much faith in the US, but I've seen so many Americans that basically see it as a fluke of history that Greenland isn't theirs that I have my doubts that Greenland would remain independent for long. 50,000 people (mostly indigenous) controlling a whole lot of natural resources that 300+ million Americans want, right in America's backyard? Not to mention them being ruled by actual socialists? It's pretty much the perfect storm of factors arguing for an eventual American takeover.

# ¿ Feb 19, 2013 14:50

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GreenCard78 posted:

Americans do not give a gently caress about Greenland except for an air base.

That's really my point; Americans don't care about Greenland, but they do care about cheap resources.

# ¿ Feb 19, 2013 15:52

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DrProsek posted:

To the point of attacking a NATO and EU nation, right as the current president of the USA is seeking a USA-EU free trade agreement. You really think that Americans, so desperate for resources, are going to basically kill NATO, and ruin any chance of a USA-EU FTA that would have gotten those cheap resources to the USA anyway when there are still plenty of other perfectly good nations the USA could declare war on to get resources anyway without losing all diplomatic relations with the the region of the world that still overall likes the USA? Or that the American bloodlust for Socialists is so strong they are willing to attack Greenland, but not Venezuala, a socialist nation with far worse relations than Denmark? That's insane. Also I have never heard anyone in the USA care about Greenland other than saying "lol it actually has ice and iceland has green".

The whole point is that this is all future tense, with an independent Greenland (which isn't part of the EU now, and might not be a part of NATO at that point, if there even is a NATO still.) and an ice-free Arctic. And I'm not talking about just randomly and openly invading, more something along the line of American corporations just having an inordinate amount of influence, followed by American workers becoming an increasingly significant portion of the population.

I guess my joke about it happening within 10 years might have made it sound like a expected something really dramatic, but that's not what I meant. The thing about them being indigenous and socialist was not meant as a justification for a war (because I don't really expect one.), but simply as one more thing that would otherize the people who pay the price for Western living. Isn't this basically what's happening in Africa, just with Chinese instead of Americans, and thousands of natives replaced with millions?

Deceitful Penguin posted:

Whaaaat? What? Like, do you have any links to it? Because that would be heeelarious to read through.

Eh, it's just random history nerds who really think Manifest Destiny is the greatest invention ever, and who know that the purchase/take over of Greenland has been a goal of parts of the American establishment at various points in history. Well, and Iceland of course, just to make sure America is really safe. Basically the kind of people who can't grasp the idea that someone might not want to be an American.

# ¿ Feb 20, 2013 02:21

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fermun posted:

An explosion that large would cause so much dust to go into the upper atmosphere that there would a reduction in sunlight reaching earth, creating a global winter, extending the size of the ice caps and lowering sea levels. This map is inaccurate all around.

An explosion that large would more likely be so powerful as to burn the entire surface to a crisp, oceans included.

# ¿ Mar 5, 2013 18:07

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Dr. Tough posted:

See here's what I don't get about this, Maryland is listed as "Land of the Rebellious One" but isn't it just "Queen Mary's Land"? Like how do you get the former out of the latter. I think these literal name guys are just making poo poo up.

It's because they also translate Mary, which according to some would be translated to rebelliousness. Alternative translations of Maryland along those lines would be Land of the Sea of Bitterness, or Land That Wished for a Child. I do agree though, that's really reaching, given that I very much doubt the people who named it Maryland knew the etymology of the name Mary.

# ¿ Mar 9, 2013 16:17

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prefect posted:

Ile de France seems awfully large. And how come Sweden/Norway/Finland don't get broken up at all?

Because a large part of their territory is just mostly empty wilderness, while most of the rest of Europe is far more densely populated?

# ¿ Mar 9, 2013 20:37

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Andy Impey posted:

With a few inexplicable outliers. Why you hate foreigners so much, Denmark?

Well, I looked through the report, and I found this description of what the numbers mean:

WEF posted:

Attitude of population toward foreign visitors
How welcome are foreign visitors in your country? [1 = very unwelcome; 7 = very welcome] | 2011�2012 weighted average

Given that Denmark scored 5.7 out 7, I don't think the color red should really be seen as necessarily indicating dislike of visitors, just that we're worse than the median (6.1).* Given that the median indicates a large proportion of the population being very welcoming to foreigners, falling a bit short of it doesn't mean you hate them. I wonder though how that question was answered by people, because it could be read as either personal opinion about foreigners, or your personal opinion about other people's opinion about foreigners. In the latter case, you could have a bunch of people overstate how loving racists their countrymen are, or the opposite, depending on where they personally fall. I assume the questionnaire was given in local languages, where the question might have been clearer for some than others, skewing the result. Not at all an expert at this poo poo, so please do educate me if I'm being an idiot, but it just seems suspect to me.

And since people wondered about them, Japan is 6.2 and the US 6.0.

*We probably do deserve the least friendly award among the Nordic Countries, we're kind of dicks.

# ¿ Mar 24, 2013 16:38

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prefect posted:

What language is that map in? Is every country labeled using their native languages? That was my first guess, but the seas don't belong to any one nation, so I'm not sure what the standard is.

The Danish part is all wrong, like apparently some of the others are as well. Flensburg would just be Flensborg (I'm assuming some confusion in regards to the German use of V as F?), Kiel would just be Kiel (and not this weird bastardization of the English name for the fjord it resides in), and L�beck could be transliterated to Lyb�k (even if L�beck would work fine). Maybe L�beck is actually supposed to be Polish here, don't know if Lobek makes sense there, though that would be taking it out of its current state of Schleswig-Holstein for no reason. (Well, not that cutting up Germany make sense, but you know.)

Hamborg is correct though, so there's that at least. Pretty sure it wasn't a Dane that made the map at least, perhaps more so because we just got back our kings' old territory, while everyone else is just spilling out all over the place. Maybe an Italian given the names in Austria?

# ¿ Apr 1, 2013 18:26

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twoday posted:

Here is a German version:

That's really just a German reproduction of a Jewish-American's (Theodore Newman Kaufman, the guy in the top left) idea for Germany's fate, map included. His basic idea seems to have been that since Germany was a perpetual disturber of the peace, the sterilization of the German people and the dismemberment of Germany was the only real solution to a nation of homicidal maniacs. Talk about handing the Nazis their propaganda on a platter.

# ¿ Apr 1, 2013 19:34

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Edible Hat posted:

Guys, I want to create a politically-loaded map of my own! Is there a (free) map template I can use so that I could just press on a country and the whole country will be filled in with the color of my choosing. Let's say I want to show, cartographically, the political landscape of Europe at the moment by coloring in countries with right-leaning governments blue, countries left-leaning government red, and countries with grand coalitions yellow. There are plenty of blank maps online, but jpeg artifacts and the odd borders of some countries - do I really have to fill in Indonesia by clicking on each island? - makes using these maps in Paint a pain in the rear end.

If what you want to do is to recolor political maps, you could download paint.NET (which is free) and a nice map that does not have repeating country colors, then use the Magic Wand function in Flood Mode to select the color you want to change. This selects every instance of the color in the image (adjust Tolerance to your needs), and then you can use the Paint Bucket to fill them all at once. The program is basically a more advanced version of Paint, so it should be easy to figure out.

If you do make that particular map, do please look up more than just the name of the political party in power. It's not exactly uncommon for European Social Democrats to be neo-Liberals of the worst kind. (What would be interesting would be a map that shows apparent political affiliation vs. actual political affiliation.)

# ¿ Apr 17, 2013 23:54

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The best thing about that map is that it was outdated within month, and things are generally moving forward. Mostly on the gay front though, not so much the trans/intersex one.

# ¿ May 17, 2013 21:12

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New Division posted:

People of the Middle Ages in Europe bathed more often than the popular imagination gives them credit for. They might not have bathed as often as Jews (I really have no idea how to compare the two cultures here), but bathing was hardly a rare thing, especially among the nobility and clergy.

Yeah, I think it's only later when the nobility started forgoing bathing in favor of just dousing themselves in perfumes. This is also the period in which people just hid behind the curtains in the Versailles when they needed to do their business, so regular bathing might have been a tall order.

# ¿ May 24, 2013 07:25

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jammu posted:

Hah. Finnosphere is exluded from scandinavia.

Finland is clearly part of the Scandinavian sphere, otherwise it would not be included in the Nordic countries. It's obviously not Scandinavian per se, but nobody's perfect.

jammu posted:

Also, where is the Samistan? They should get most of the north scandinavia & finland.

I don't think the Sami are a majority anywhere, nor do they even come close to the 10 million mark. Might as well call the Brandenburg region Sorbia.

# ¿ Jun 2, 2013 11:02

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Kainser posted:

I like that there were some people who apparently thought that a Hungarian exclave in Transylvania would be better then having it connected to the rest of Hungary.

e; but I guess that's alternatehistory.com for you.

Well, that's what happens when you have a cultural exclave, but don't want to force the people between the two regions to join up. I guess you might be able to make some kind of snakey strip that connected the two without getting too many Romanians, but I'm not sure how well Romania would take it.

Not exactly the easiest thing to solve in a way that won't piss anyone off. The real life solution was obviously just to make sure Hungary was the only one that was pissed off, so everyone else could make sure they didn't get any good ideas.

# ¿ Jun 2, 2013 23:40

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Lycus posted:

I think it's more a case of territorial settlements are naturally going to favor winners. Romania was an Ally, Hungary was a Central Power, so Romania got the better deal.

Of course, but there are still degrees to which you dismember the loser. By handing over pretty heavily Hungarian territory to all the neighbors, you ensure that everyone around them have an interest in preventing Hungary from ever rising again. It did give France the Little Entente, even if it didn't end up doing much good in the end.

Kainser posted:

Yeah, I'm aware of the realities, I just find it funny that there are people that think that giving Hungary the Szeklerland as an exclave would have been the optimal solution when it seems like something that would piss off both Hungary and Romania while solving very little.

Maybe there would have been more support for a smaller strip of land? Considering some of the membership of the site, respecting cultural borders is probably the best you're gonna do, even if the solutions they then come up with are pretty idealistic. You would have to be a pretty talented statesman to solve the problem of a sizable minority residing smack in the middle of another country though, in a way that was tolerable to both Hungarians and Romanians.

Kainser posted:

Anyway, all the lands of the Glorious Crown of St. Stephen obviously belongs to Hungary.

Matthias Corvinus' territories or bust.

# ¿ Jun 3, 2013 07:49

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cheerfullydrab posted:

Fun fact after the war Hungary was forced to go back to Trianon borders and everybody got all their land back. Except for that Eastern bit of Czechoslovakia. The USSR got to keep that because

1. Stalin wanted it
2. Western Allies didn't give a poo poo

3. Majority Ukrainian.

# ¿ Jun 6, 2013 21:29

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Dr. Tough posted:

I'm sure Stalin was very concerned about the Ukrainian people.

He was concerned about being more Russian than the Russians though. But really, does it matter why he did it? There's really no reason why Carpatian Ruthenia should be part of Czechoslovakia, and plenty of reason for it to be part of the Ukraine.

# ¿ Jun 6, 2013 21:49

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Ponsonby Britt posted:

Actually, the western bit of Ukraine is much more pro-western than the rest of the country; they're also more fervently nationalist. This traces back to the period when they were ruled by the Hapsburgs - it's not like the Hapsburgs were objectively pro-democracy or pro-nationalism, but they were a much freer society than Tsarist Russia and were much more open to those ideas. This extends to the modern day; the main political cleavage in Ukraine is between the pro-West west and the pro-Russia east. (The red areas voted for pro-Western candidate Viktor Yuschenko, whereas the blue areas voted for pro-Russia candidate Viktor Yanukovich.)

See for instance this map of the December 2004 Presidential election:

Looking at that map, it seems like the area fit in pretty well with the rest of the western part of Ukraine? That the Ukraine itself has a significant Russian minority in it's south-eastern territories doesn't mean the region didn't fit in with its western-Ukrainian neighbors.

Ponsonby Britt posted:

Even if we're looking at it from a purely ethnolinguistic perspective, western Ukraine is different; people are more likely to speak Ukrainian (as opposed to Russophones in the east), and are more likely to be (Greek) Catholic than the Orthodox east. That being said, I don't think the abstract norm of the Wilsonian nation-state is a good idea in the Eastern European context. Different ethnic groups are all jumbled together; it's impossible to create a contiguous, unicultural nation-state there without ethnic cleansing and/or genocide. So what particular reason was there for Ruthenians or Galicians to live in the USSR as opposed to Czechoslovakia or Poland? Either way, they would have been a minority with no way to actually express their cultural identity.

They would have fewer ways to express their cultural identity if they were part of Poland, considering that post-war Poland moved the Ukrainians from the south-east to the north-west, in a deliberate attempt at assimilation. Which was itself a continuation of the Polish nation building project of assimilating the third of the population that were minorities in the inter-war period. Admittedly they did try the inclusive republic thing first, where different nationalities were loyal to the state, but that didn't really work out. I could see it working out as part of Czechoslovakia, though I wonder would have happened when it split. Considering the Yugoslav example, maybe Stalin's heavy-handed touch saved them some trouble in the long run?

cheerfullydrab posted:

You're talking about self-determination, which is actually one of the reasons behind the existence of Czechoslovakia in the first place. Yes, self-determination does open up many cans of worms but I don't think it's ever truly been applied. Post-WW1 selective application of the principle of self-determination practically resulted in the ignorance of the will of several groups of people (mostly Germans or Hungarians) because the victors of that war really loving just vindictively wanted these people to suffer, and in the attempted subordination of certain nationalities to the will of other "good" ones. Like Croats to Serbs or Slovaks to Czechs.

The Danish-German border is a case of national self-determination, but I think it's also the only one. Not a 100% perfect, but compared to the borders handed down by the victors in the rest of Europe it's pretty good.

Should be noted that in 1947, 57% of people native* to the remaining German Schleswig voted for the SSV, the party of the Danish-minded minority, though the Danish government declined any idea of another plebiscite. If it had gone through, the border could have been pushed quite a bit further south. It's probably a good thing it wasn't though, since the current situation seems to be pretty satisfactory for all three historical ethnic groups.

*As there were a lot of refugees in Schleswig at that point, enough to reduce that to only 35% of the total.

cheerfullydrab posted:

All that really happened was that I tried to throw in a little-known historical fact into a discussion, and then got my hackles up because I believed someone was defending one of Stalin's horrible landgrabs.

What's so horrible about it? Ukrainians being reunited with other Ukrainians, instead of being subordinated within the Czechoslovakian polity seems pretty well in-line with what you wrote above? Stalin was a bastard, but I don't really see what's so horrible about that part, especially in comparison to his big crimes.

goethe42 posted:

How about it being historically part of countries west of the Carpathians (Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania) but never part of the Ukraine, the majority of people being Greek Catholic like the Slovaks instead of orthodox like Ukrainians and Russians?
What about the Carpathian mountains being a natural and cultural border?

Natural borders are just an excuse for expansion half the time, and for keeping your territories the other half. Also, I thought it had been part of the Kievan Rus polity? Admittedly that's a long time ago, but being part of another ethnicity's state for a long time isn't really much of an argument. I do agree though that they should have had a vote for it, I just didn't see why it was apparently so egregious a crime.

# ¿ Jun 7, 2013 11:32

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System Metternich posted:

Schleswig is also linguistically quite interesting, because it has five officially recognised languages: Standard German, Low German (still spoken by many people especially in rural areas), Northern Frisian (spoken by about 8-10,000 people along Schleswig's western coast), Danish (spoken by perhaps 50,000 people mostly along the northern border) and Romanes (the language of the Roma and Sinti, spoken by at the most 5,000 people). Some linguists claim that South Jutlandic, a variant of Danish with a strong Low German influence, is actually a language of its own. There is also Petuh, a strange mixture of German, Low German, Standard Danish and South Jutlandic spoken by a handful of older people in Flensburg. A study done in the 1970s German border town of Roden�s came to the conclusion that 28% of the population spoke all five local languages or dialects (i.e. Standard German, Low German, Standard Danish, South Jutlandic and Northern Frisian) more or less fluently. I'm loving stuff like this

This is pretty much why I think the current arrangement seems pretty good. There's no disputing that those languages are minority languages, but by Germany and Denmark having an agreement about their respective minorities, those other minority languages can just kinda hang on and be a part of a region that seems to identify itself as a mixed-culture border region. I guess it might also have helped that Danes have a tradition of driving south of the border to buy cheap beer, adding some money to the local economy. :v:

E:In regards to the Low German influence on South Jutlandic, that's true of the whole language really, which is probably why the Swedes have such a hard time understanding us. I've even seen some North German goons say that Danish is much easier to understand than German speakers in the south. (Though I think it was Swiss German they really had trouble with, which I can't blame them.)

Speaking of South Jutlandic, here's a map of the major Danish dialects:

Which looks sensible enough, until you look at the various ways those major dialects break apart. Not sure how easy it is to make sense of for someone that doesn't speak Danish though, I don't think the site has an English version unfortunately.

http://dialekt.ku.dk/dialektkort/

A Buttery Pastry fucked around with this message at 13:28 on Jun 7, 2013

# ¿ Jun 7, 2013 13:21

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3peat posted:

A crime/murder rate map to go with that would be interesting

Here you go. Based it off stats from Wikipedia.

# ¿ Jun 15, 2013 15:37

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In the spirit of talking about alcohol, here are some maps based on the above link:

Can you guess in which countries people are dying of alcohol use disorders?

# ¿ Jun 17, 2013 12:43

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Skeleton Jelly posted:

I don't think anyone's telling that to Estonia.

It's not unusual to see people mistakenly call it a Balkan state though, even if that probably falls under the same header as people confusing Danish and Dutch.

# ¿ Jun 17, 2013 15:25

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Tony Jowns posted:

Or Dutch and Deutsch. That one had me confused for years.

At least that has the excuse of being the same word, just in two languages that have diverged. Danish/Dutch just has the D, and I suppose a bit of a libertine reputation?

# ¿ Jun 17, 2013 15:46

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redscare posted:

I'm guessing they drink nothing but samogon in Belarus, but what the are they chugging in Armenia?

A cursory search on Google leads me to believe its oghi, a fruit vodka, which is widely produced as moonshine. (And which is not the same as the oghi of the diaspora, which is basically like arak/raki/ouzu.) Must be pretty good given the quantities they're consuming.

Dusseldorf posted:

Countries in Europe not covered in heavy fog.

Hah.

The fact that some countries simply disappear was on purpose though, I wanted to make the differences really stand out. Looks a bit silly on that map I suppose, given how few countries are really visible.

A Buttery Pastry fucked around with this message at 22:29 on Jun 17, 2013

# ¿ Jun 17, 2013 22:25

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Guavanaut posted:

If it's just the various distilled liquors of each country, wouldn't it be under the spirits map instead of 'others'?

I can only assume it's a way to make countries that have a tradition of making moonshine stand out. That's really the only thing that makes sense to me, because wouldn't everything technically fall under either beer, wine or spirits?

TinTower posted:

Not everything.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gy1B3agGNxw

Yeah, Moldova is generally one of the better performers at Eurovision, even if they're not rewarded for it.

# ¿ Jun 18, 2013 08:32

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Phlegmish posted:

Norway, notable banana republic.

Close enough, they do pay Swedes to peel their bananas.

E: Well, I guess that would make them the opposite of a banana republic, given that they're also a kingdom.

# ¿ Jun 21, 2013 19:12

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Guildencrantz posted:

Well, it's a little more complex than that - the western part marked as the German partition can actually be split into two areas. One is the actual Prussian partition that was inhabited by Poles and belonged to the old Commonwealth, the other is the "Recovered Territories", as they were called by the communists. The RT are the lands annexed in 1945, small parts of which were disputed between Poland and Germany, but most of which had pretty much always been ethnically and linguistically German and we had no real claim to them.

Well, there were some hundreds of years where German tribes had left their traditional core territories south of Denmark, and West Slavic tribes had moved in. These were of course eventually retaken by the Germans, and largely assimilated, but I guess it comes down to how you defined "pretty much always". Hell, there are still a few of those Slavic groups left in Germany to this day, despite all the various attempts at assimilation through the centuries.

As for claims, I guess it's a question of how far you're willing to go back, and the criteria you use. Going off the historical borders of the first Polish state, the current ones match up surprisingly well:

It did ignore the whole idea of national self-determination, but then again, so did trying to exterminate the Polish population. (Though of course there's also the question of how these territories were used to move and assimilate ethnic minorities within Poland, such as Ukrainians.)

# ¿ Jun 22, 2013 17:43

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icantfindaname posted:

No, the blue cuts off at the Urals, which is the line between European Russia and Asian Russia.

Not sure it's actually supposed to cut off at the Urals, because it's pretty far off.

icantfindaname posted:

Well the traditional border between those languages is the Urals. 100 years ago that would have been accurate. A more accurate map today would be major cities speaking Russian and old people and minorities scattered throughout the countryside speaking Uralic and Turkic. If you're going to make a generalized map of languages that doesn't seem too controversial, certainly not like claiming every language spoken on the Eurasian continent is somehow related.

That area is pretty much one of the places where the notion of "traditional language borders" makes the least sense, I think. The plains between the Ukraine and the Caspian Sea have been home to a lot of different groups, who were later pushed onwards by new arrivals into Europe, like the Hungarians and Bulgarians. And of course there are the Mongols, who the Russians finally took the area from eventually, and who settled the poo poo out of it. Much of European Russia being Russian is relatively recent really, and even then, there are still some significant minority-majority areas left.

Ethnic groups of the USSR, 1974

# ¿ Jun 27, 2013 09:38

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

I'm kinda surprised by Norway, it's not like they don't have a poo poo ton of oil money either. Maybe us poor Danes are having our numbers inflated by Norwegian meat tourists?* Seriously though, I looked up the stats, and apparently the Norwegian meat consumption has fluctuated quite dramatically in recent years. (I think both lower and higher than shown on this map.) drat Norwegians and their health crazes. I would be interested in seeing maps with different types of meat though, because they're not exactly created equal. Would probably make the map even more skewed, with the people eating little meat eating chicken, and the people eating loads eating beef.

*An actual thing. Norwegians pensioners take the ferry to Denmark and fill their luggage with cheap meat products.

# ¿ Jun 28, 2013 23:24

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# ¿ May 2, 2024 08:48

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

Lord Tywin posted:

A shitload of them also crosses over to Sweden to buy their meat so I think combined with the meat tourism to Denmark is why they have such lower rates of meat consumption that map.

Wasn't aware of that, but it makes sense. Can't imagine anyone living right on the border to Sweden wanting to go all the way to Denmark just to buy meat.

redscare posted:

What the hell? I thought this kind of poo poo only went down in places like the Soviet Union (seriously, my parents have told me about these 'kielbasa trains' where villagers would just roll into moscow, buy everything they could carry, and then roll back home)

Grand Fromage posted:

Norway is expensive as gently caress. I have a Norwegian friend who lives pretty close to the border, he does almost all of his shopping in Sweden because it's so much cheaper.

Yeah, Denmark and Sweden would probably sound expensive to most Americans in the first place. Norway's prices beat ours handily. (The cost of living groceries index for Denmark and Sweden is 93, vs. New York's 100, and Norway's is 136.) I also found some claims that bacon in Norway is three times more expensive than in Sweden, so if that holds for other types of meat there's a lot of money to be saved by going across the border.

Oh yeah, and both Swedes and Norwegians also buy cheap beer here in Denmark, while us Danes go to Germany and buy cheap beer there. It's all a bit silly really. :v:

# ¿ Jun 29, 2013 12:15

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > politically-loaded maps: sputtering flemishly

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