kirkcudbright | map wanking

Francie recently got a shower curtain with a world map on it, which is a joy to behold, but it only took a couple minutes to start poking holes in it, as it were. So here I am, sitting on the toilet, armed with a globe, an atlas, the Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection, the CIA World Factbook, the World Gazetteer, the UN List of Member States, and Wikipedia (and a really crappy wireless connection, I might add), proof-reading the shower curtain.

Colors:
You all know that any map can be colored with only four colors. This map has six, and still manages to blow it.

Peru and Chile are the same color, suggesting a single country stretching from the equator to the Antarctic.
Likewise Russia and Belarus (though there are some in both countries that would wish it), Italy and Ausria, France and Luxembourg, Turkey and Georgia, D.R. Congo and Burundi, Prince Edward Island (unlabelled) and New Brunswick.
OTOH, Tasmania is a different color from Australia (and is separately labelled), suggesting it's a different country.
The European part of Turkey is a different color from the Asian part.
The Greek island of Évvoia (just off the Greek mainland) and the Dodecanese (just off the Turkish coast) are colored as if they belonged to Turkey, while Crete is colored and labelled as if it was a separate country.
The Balearic Islands are colored and labelled separately from Spain.
OTOH, Corsica and Sardinia are actually colored to match France and Italy, respectively.
Gotland and Öland Islands are colored differently from the rest of Sweden.
Manitoulin Island in Lake Huron is colored differently from both Michigan and Ontario (to which it belongs).
The Hebrides, Orkneys, Shetlands, and the Isles of Man and Wight are all colored differently from the rest of the UK. (The Channel Islands are missing, but that's not surprising on a map of this scale.)
The Irish Republic is colored orange, and Northern Ireland (together with the rest of the UK) is colored green. This might or might not be a clever joke.
There's an unlabelled, differently colored blob next to the South Shetland Islands, which might be King George Island or Johnville Island, at the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula.
The coloring of Tierra Del Fuego is entirely messed up. The western half of Isla Grande de Tierra Del Fuego belongs to Chile, and the eastern half belongs to Argentina. This is colored as if the eastern half belongs to Chile, and the western half is independent. This is one of two items that I would classify as actual factual errors. (The other is the implication that PEI is part of New Bruswick.) (Okay, three if you count mis-spelling Nunavut as Nanavut.)

Possessions:
A lot of possessive relationships are noted on the map, but a lot are not.

Remarked upon before: Crete (Greece), Balearic Islands (Spain)
Kaliningrad (Russia) is not labelled at all. It's just this blob (albeit the same color as Russia) between Lithuania and Poland.
Greenland and the Faroe Islands are both self-governing overseas administrative divisions of Denmark, but Denmark handles foreign and defense affairs, and they use the Danish kroner, so they are generally listed as Danish possessions. (Faroe isn't labelled at all - just the capital, Tórshavn.)
Cook Islands (New Zealand). Again, they are self-governing in free association with New Zealand, but NZ handles foreign and defense affairs, and they use the NZ dollar.
Falkland Islands and South Georgia (UK)
New Caledonia (France)
Cabinda (Angola)
Walvis Bay (South Africa)
Galapagos Islands (Ecuador)
Virgin Islands (US/UK)
American Samoa (US)
Kiritimati/Christmas Island, Cocos/Keeling Islands (Australia)
OTOH, they show "North Cyprus" (officially the "Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus") separately from Cyprus, even though it's only recognized by Turkey.

Missing

Antarctica. The entire freaking continent.
Liechtenstein - 160 sq km on the Swiss/Austrian border
San Marino - 61.2 sq km within central Italy
Holy See/Vatican City - 0.44 sq km within Rome. Really, most maps omit these last two, but most (including this one) also manage to include Monaco, at 1.95 sq km.
Cayman Islands (UK)
Anguilla (UK)
Saint Kitts and Nevis
Wallis and Futuna (France)
American Somoa
Tokelau, Niue (New Zealand)
Actually, I'm going to stop searching the map for every little island nation or dependency. Even I'm not that anal. At the moment.

Cities
The most disturbing thing about this map is the utterly random selection of cities. Most countries have at least a capital city, but there's no rhyme or reason to what other cities are listed, or how many.

There are no cities in contiguous US other than Washington DC. There are 7 cities and towns in Alaska - but not Juneau, the state capital.
Likewise, in Canada, they managed to omit every single provincial and territorial capital except Quebec City, and that was probably an oversight.
- British Columbia has 6 cities, but not Victoria.
- Alberta had 5 cities, but not Edmonton.
- Saskatchewan has 4 cities, but not Regina.
- Manitoba has 3 cities, but not Winnipeg.
- Astonishly, there are 3 cities in Ontario - Moosonee, Timmins, and the national capital of Ottowa - but not the provincial capital of Toronto, the largest city in Canada.
- The 4 maritime provinces don't have any cities except Labrador City (not even the capital of Newfoundland ("New Foundland"), and, due to printing mis-registration, apparently in Quebec).
- The Territories have 3 towns between them, but no territorial capitals.
In Australia, there is nothing in Victoria (Melbourne) or Tasmania (Hobart); Queensland has Mackay and Cairns, but not Brisbane; Northern Territory has Tennant Creek and Alice Springs (think Priscilla, Queen of the Desert), but not Darwin. So what does have a capital? Western Australia (Perth), South Australia (Adelaide), New South Wales (Sydney), and of course the Capital Territory (Canberra).
The UK has London and...Sunderland. Not Birmingham, Glasgow, Liverpool, or Leeds (2nd through 5th largest cities), but Sunderland (30th largest). This has to be a private joke.
The largest country not to have even a capital is Chad.
The smallest country to have a capital is Benin (but neighboring Togo, about the same size, doesn't get one). There are a lot of countries in between that arbitrarily have, or don't have, a capital city, or other cities.
Bolivia has two capitals - Sucre and La Paz (the real one). [edit]: This is valid - La Paz is the de facto seat of government, and Sucre is the legal capital and seat of judiciary.
South Africa has three capitals - Cape Town, Bloemfontein, and Pretoria (the real one). [edit]: This is valid - Cape Town is the legislative capital, Pretoria is the administrative capital, and Bloemfontein is the judicial capital. How about that.
Incidentally, they use the junta name for Burma (Myanmar), but the conventional name for its capital (Rangoon, versus Yangon).
There are lots of cities listed in Russia, China, and Brazil. They do a reasonable job in all three, with the best effort in Brazil, where they get the 12 largest cities, plus a few extras.