The NextGen OTL Worlda Series

On the subject of doing new maps, I am not great at border drawing or anything, but I could potentially at least translate some of the older ones onto the new map, copying the borders for the year onto it and getting some things like new coloration/border schemes up to date. Especially for the 20th century, which if I remember correctly would essentially mean adding maps for 1925, 1936, maybe 1938, possibly some additional ones for WWII if we want to go with multiple maps per year as we used to do (for different points, like a 1940 before the German invasion of Norway and Denmark, after but before the fall of France, and after the fall of France, and like a 1941 before Barbarossa and another at the furthest German offensive extent), and then in the cold war era, one for 1948, 1950, 1955, 1965, 1975, 1985, and maybe one or more of 1989, 1990, and 1991

On a bit of a different subject, @Admiral-A-Kolchak , I know you did a pretty big overhaul of China in the 1910s, 1920s, and 1930s during the revolution/civil wars/warlord era. I am just wondering if you'd have any interest in updating the WWII-era maps and the later 1940s maps, since those are still with the old style with inaccurate out-of-date borders? Obviously there's no obligation, but I recall how well you did it last time with the earlier maps, and if anyone was best suited for improving these ones too, it would probably be you
 

ST15RM

Banned
upload_2019-12-6_21-35-7.png

i did do a few minor modifications to the 1900 map. next will be the 1871 one.
 
i did do a few minor modifications to the 1900 map. next will be the 1871 one.

Venezuela-British Guiana border is incorrect I believe. The arbitral award was made towards the end of 1899, Venezuela protested the outcome but didn't actually denounce it until 1945 and even then they didn't revive their claim until 1962.
 
How do I modify a base map in ms paint without making a mess and change the borders

Once I finish the 5.0 series I'm gonna make an "infographic" type of tutorial that outlines my workflow. It's gonna be using photoshop, but the same process works in paint.net or GIMP, just with slightly different menus. I strongly advise against MS Paint. I'm waist deep in final papers right now, so I probably won't be able to resume work on the series until Thursday.
 
1900 map fixed. Upon looking at some other areas there were a number of things missing or out of place:

- British-Brazilian border in Roraima wasn't fixed by arbitration until 1904

- British-Venezuelan border was fixed by arbitration in 1899 (Venezuela did not repudiate this until 1962 officially and only revived the claim then)

- the borders between Peru, Ecuador, Colombia and Brazil were far less controlled and had more overlapping disputes in 1900

- the Counani dispute wasn't officially resolved until 1900, with France still attempting to claim some kind of control over the area (and still had effective control over some parts of the coast) until arbitration by the President of Switzerland in December 1900 decided the area belonged to Brazil.

- most of the border areas between Brazil and the European colonies in the the Guianas wasn't under anyone's effective control even though borders were more or less agreed.

- the Boer War had already started in in 1899 and the British had quickly occupied both Transvaal and Orange Free State (OFS). Pretoria was occupied in June 1900, OFS had been annexed in May 1900 and Transvaal occupied in September 1900 with the war being declared "over" (though a brutal guerrilla campaign would continue well into 1902 so the war wasn't really over).

- Australia was being shown in an odd way as the dominion internal colour would indicate a dominion like form of internal government, but all the Australian colonies were outlined except Western Australia. This isn't representative of the situation at the time. Australia federated on January 1, 1901. This was in accordance with the terms of the legislation creating it (the Commonwealth of Australia Act 1900) which was passed in 1900 and given Royal Assent in 1900 also, but which only brought the Commonwealth of Australia into effect on a day appointed by proclamation (that date was given in September 1900 and was January 1, 1901). Until then all of the Australian colonies remained separate (also Northern Territory was shown as being separate from South Australia, but this is not the case as Northern Territory wasn't transferred to the Commonwealth (and thus separated from South Australia) until 1911). If this was an attempt to represent the Federal Council of Australasia then in 1900 it would have included Fiji, Western Australia, Queensland, Tasmania and Victoria. South Australia was only a member between 1888 and 1890 and New South Wales and New Zealand were never members. In any case the Federal Council was extremely weak and had no powers, so it would be odd to represent this on the map when in truth the South African Customs Union has had and always had far more power than the Federal Council could have ever dreamed of having.

- the colouring of the Australian colours as noted, indicated a dominion-like form of internal government. This was actually something that was generally (but not always) a precursor to a colony becoming a Dominion and was a legal concept called "responsible government". By 1900 the colonies which had responsible government were Newfoundland, Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia, Victoria, Tasmania, New South Wales, New Zealand, Cape Colony and Natal. These have been shown as having responsible government.

- Cape Colony and Natal were shown as provinces of one entity which was incorrect. Natal was governed briefly from Cape Colony in 1844 but was a separate colony and received responsible government (1893) separately from Cape Colony (1872)

- Most of the interior of New Guinea was not controlled by the Dutch, Germans or British (via Queensland) in 1900. The borders between each were fixed, but the interior was mainly under local control and the protectorate over northwestern New Guinea (versus more direct control in southwestern New Guinea) by the Dutch hadn't been fully established yet.

- Cuba was occupied by the United States in 1900. Spain ceded control at the end of 1898 in the Treaty of Paris but a protectorate wouldn't be established over Cuba until May 1902 when Cuba's independence constitution came into effect with the Platt Amendment incorporated wholesale giving the US the exclusive right to intervene in Cuban domestic affairs. If occupations aren't going to be shown then it needs to be consistent.

OTL worlda 1900 fixed.png
 
Last edited:
Further down on the page it states that the map could not have been made before the 1930s.

Fair point. In my defence, I only just got out of bed.

Edit: Reading deeper, it appears that the 1932 dating is based on the idea that "Belgian Congo" and "Tanganyika" didn't exist as legal entities under those names in 1896. More critically, the area wasn't re-organised into six provinces as shown until 1932.

So now I'm wondering where the borders are coming from for all the other Congo provinces.
 
Last edited:
There's this map on Encyclopaedia Britannica, which claims to be a 1902 map of the area (borders seem to correspond to this map on wikipedia dated 1914). However, neither shows that rectangular Katanga border. The borders in the rest of Congo appear at first glance to be these borders.

I suspect the rectangular Katanaga border only existed as a trading company concession, and not as something that was part of the nominal political structure. The question then becomes, why is the Katana region being drawn with trading concession borders, while the rest with civil authority borders?
 
Top