BOB GARFIELD:  Russia’s annexation of Crimea has now created a proxy battleground on the territory of cartographers. Fox News. 

  [CLIP]:

NEIL CAVUTO:  Someone call Rand McNally because it's time to draw another map. Crimea is now part of Russia again. I told you, shouldn't have thrown out those old maps!

  [END CLIP]

BOB GARFIELD:  Actually, Rand McNally has said, “Not so fast.” It won’t cede Crimea to Russia until the State Department does. But the Kremlin has wasted no time whatsoever trying to achieve with color coding and borderlines what even thousands of Russian troops in Crimea have failed to extract from the international community, recognition of the Black Sea Peninsula as, quote, “the youngest region of Russia.”

Indeed, though the annexation was accomplished with scarcely a shot being fired, an editing war has broken out all over the map. Here's MSNBC's Rachel Maddow.

  [CLIP]:

RACHEL MADDOW:  The good folks at Wikipedia changed their map of Russia to include that little bit of Crimea. Then they changed their map back again today. Now they've made Crimea its own neon greenish color, which means that it is a territory in dispute. 

  [END CLIP]

BOB GARFIELD:  National Geographic also entered the fray, first saying it would map Crimea as a part of Russia, once the Duma officially ratified the annexation. But then, after some heated push back, the organization indicated it would also shade the region as disputed. Here’s National Geographic’s head mapmaker, Juan Valdés.

JUAN VALDÉS:  I constantly have to monitor the world to make sure that our maps are portraying the current reality, whatever that may be. 

BOB GARFIELD:  But, according to reporter Michael Blanding, soon to publish a book called The Map Thief, reality is in the eye of the cartographer.

MICHAEL BLANDING:  Well, I think that the reality of the situation on the ground is always up to interpretation. Different mapmakers draw the lines in different places – no pun intended. You know, Rand McNally has not changed the way that they represent Crimea because they are taking their direction from the State Department. The Oxford Atlas in the UK takes their direction from the United Nations. 

National Geographic, they say that they strive to be apolitical and be independent. But at the same time, I think that mapmaking can never be completely apolitical and more important is understanding, as a view of maps, that those decisions are always being made.

BOB GARFIELD:  Well, the situation is controversial, I guess, but it is not unique. If you look for gray area on the world map of disputed territories, [LAUGHS] there’s a lot of ‘em! 

MICHAEL BLANDING:  Yeah, you know I’ve been working on a book called The Map Thief, and it’s a nonfiction book about a map thief by the name of Forbes Smiley who stole over 100 antiquarian maps. 

And in researching these maps and looking at the way that territory has been designated over the centuries, I was really struck by the similarities with the controversy over Crimea and, and other areas today, that depending on the map you're looking at, depending on who's drawing the map, those borders can be put in different places. You could look at Kashmir, you could look at Cyprus, you could look at Taiwan, Morocco and West Sahara.

BOB GARFIELD:  Nagorno-Karabakh, just about every island in the South China Sea.

MICHAEL BLANDING:  Even some islands in Maine, I think are claimed by Canada.

  [BOB LAUGHS]

I know there’s a dispute there.

BOB GARFIELD:  I hope we’re not facing a Falklands type scenario.

MICHAEL BLANDING:  I hope I didn’t stir anything up.

BOB GARFIELD:  Well, on the subject of stirring things up, [LAUGHS] you suggested that the very process of mapmaking can actually influence conduct of government and influence subsequent events. 

MICHAEL BLANDING:  The way that maps have been drawn historically influences our perceptions of the area when we look at those maps over time. There was a map by John Smith where he changed all the Native American settlement names to the names of English cities, as – as a way to signal in the minds of the viewers that this area was no longer native territory and that it belonged to England.

If you think about the choices that they’re making to declare, say, Crimea a disputed area but maybe not Tibet, you know, all of these decisions carry import, especially with long simmering controversies. By keeping those controversies alive or, or designating them as settled, I think that they can solidify those borders in people's minds.

BOB GARFIELD:  And, therefore, should cartographers worry that their decisions could be, in effect, carrying political water for rogue regimes?

MICHAEL BLANDING:  I think they should certainly be conscious of it. I noted yesterday that the Russian government was pressing Google, which has an office in Russia, to change their maps and show the Crimea as part of Russia on Google Maps. In the minds of Russia and other countries there's certainly an awareness that that perception is power, and cartographers should be rightly careful about that and rightly skeptical about that.

BOB GARFIELD:  I guess if I’ve learned anything from this conversation, Michael, it's that it’s just impossible to have a truly objective map. 

MICHAEL BLANDING:  I think that's actually true. You know, there was a short story by Borges in which he talks about a country that’s so advanced that its mapmakers can create a map that is actually the size of the country itself. And, if you think about it for a minute, that such a map would not only be impossible to make but it's also impractical, that the very purpose of a map is to have a tool in our hands that we can use to navigate the world or to see the world in a different way. And as soon as you start shrinking the world down to fit on a piece of paper, you have to make decisions about what you're going to include on it and how you're going to include those details. It’s important for us as viewers to always be aware that every map has a story to tell, and we should be conscious of what those stories are.

BOB GARFIELD:  Michael, thanks. 

MICHAEL BLANDING:  Thank you for having me.

BOB GARFIELD:  Michael Blanding is an investigative journalist and author of the forthcoming book, The Map Thief, the gripping story of an esteemed rare map dealer who made millions stealing priceless maps.

BOB GARFIELD:  Russia’s annexation of Crimea has now created a proxy battleground on the territory of cartographers. Fox News. 

  [CLIP]:

NEIL CAVUTO:  Someone call Rand McNally because it's time to draw another map. Crimea is now part of Russia again. I told you, shouldn't have thrown out those old maps!

  [END CLIP]

BOB GARFIELD:  Actually, Rand McNally has said, “Not so fast.” It won’t cede Crimea to Russia until the State Department does. But the Kremlin has wasted no time whatsoever trying to achieve with color coding and borderlines what even thousands of Russian troops in Crimea have failed to extract from the international community, recognition of the Black Sea Peninsula as, quote, “the youngest region of Russia.”

Indeed, though the annexation was accomplished with scarcely a shot being fired, an editing war has broken out all over the map. Here's MSNBC's Rachel Maddow.

  [CLIP]:

RACHEL MADDOW:  The good folks at Wikipedia changed their map of Russia to include that little bit of Crimea. Then they changed their map back again today. Now they've made Crimea its own neon greenish color, which means that it is a territory in dispute. 

  [END CLIP]

BOB GARFIELD:  National Geographic also entered the fray, first saying it would map Crimea as a part of Russia, once the Duma officially ratified the annexation. But then, after some heated push back, the organization indicated it would also shade the region as disputed. Here’s National Geographic’s head mapmaker, Juan Valdés.

JUAN VALDÉS:  I constantly have to monitor the world to make sure that our maps are portraying the current reality, whatever that may be. 

BOB GARFIELD:  But, according to reporter Michael Blanding, soon to publish a book called The Map Thief, reality is in the eye of the cartographer.

MICHAEL BLANDING:  Well, I think that the reality of the situation on the ground is always up to interpretation. Different mapmakers draw the lines in different places – no pun intended. You know, Rand McNally has not changed the way that they represent Crimea because they are taking their direction from the State Department. The Oxford Atlas in the UK takes their direction from the United Nations. 

National Geographic, they say that they strive to be apolitical and be independent. But at the same time, I think that mapmaking can never be completely apolitical and more important is understanding, as a view of maps, that those decisions are always being made.

BOB GARFIELD:  Well, the situation is controversial, I guess, but it is not unique. If you look for gray area on the world map of disputed territories, [LAUGHS] there’s a lot of ‘em! 

MICHAEL BLANDING:  Yeah, you know I’ve been working on a book called The Map Thief, and it’s a nonfiction book about a map thief by the name of Forbes Smiley who stole over 100 antiquarian maps. 

And in researching these maps and looking at the way that territory has been designated over the centuries, I was really struck by the similarities with the controversy over Crimea and, and other areas today, that depending on the map you're looking at, depending on who's drawing the map, those borders can be put in different places. You could look at Kashmir, you could look at Cyprus, you could look at Taiwan, Morocco and West Sahara.

BOB GARFIELD:  Nagorno-Karabakh, just about every island in the South China Sea.

MICHAEL BLANDING:  Even some islands in Maine, I think are claimed by Canada.

  [BOB LAUGHS]

I know there’s a dispute there.

BOB GARFIELD:  I hope we’re not facing a Falklands type scenario.

MICHAEL BLANDING:  I hope I didn’t stir anything up.

BOB GARFIELD:  Well, on the subject of stirring things up, [LAUGHS] you suggested that the very process of mapmaking can actually influence conduct of government and influence subsequent events. 

MICHAEL BLANDING:  The way that maps have been drawn historically influences our perceptions of the area when we look at those maps over time. There was a map by John Smith where he changed all the Native American settlement names to the names of English cities, as – as a way to signal in the minds of the viewers that this area was no longer native territory and that it belonged to England.

If you think about the choices that they’re making to declare, say, Crimea a disputed area but maybe not Tibet, you know, all of these decisions carry import, especially with long simmering controversies. By keeping those controversies alive or, or designating them as settled, I think that they can solidify those borders in people's minds.

BOB GARFIELD:  And, therefore, should cartographers worry that their decisions could be, in effect, carrying political water for rogue regimes?

MICHAEL BLANDING:  I think they should certainly be conscious of it. I noted yesterday that the Russian government was pressing Google, which has an office in Russia, to change their maps and show the Crimea as part of Russia on Google Maps. In the minds of Russia and other countries there's certainly an awareness that that perception is power, and cartographers should be rightly careful about that and rightly skeptical about that.

BOB GARFIELD:  I guess if I’ve learned anything from this conversation, Michael, it's that it’s just impossible to have a truly objective map. 

MICHAEL BLANDING:  I think that's actually true. You know, there was a short story by Borges in which he talks about a country that’s so advanced that its mapmakers can create a map that is actually the size of the country itself. And, if you think about it for a minute, that such a map would not only be impossible to make but it's also impractical, that the very purpose of a map is to have a tool in our hands that we can use to navigate the world or to see the world in a different way. And as soon as you start shrinking the world down to fit on a piece of paper, you have to make decisions about what you're going to include on it and how you're going to include those details. It’s important for us as viewers to always be aware that every map has a story to tell, and we should be conscious of what those stories are.

BOB GARFIELD:  Michael, thanks. 

MICHAEL BLANDING:  Thank you for having me.

BOB GARFIELD:  Michael Blanding is an investigative journalist and author of the forthcoming book, The Map Thief, the gripping story of an esteemed rare map dealer who made millions stealing priceless maps.