Map Thread XVII
- Thread starter Upvoteanthology
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IIRC, that's the number of people living in Brazilian Amazonia, but I think what is officially considered Amazonia in Brazil is a larger area than the area of (OTL) Brazil that is part of the map.
I have an old atlas (published 1973) that looks really similar aesthetically to yours. Overall this is phenomenal and really reminds me of that atlas.Crosspost from the MOTF thread
The Little Red Book of Nations is a factbook published every year by the World Solidarity Fund, an organisation started by member nations of the Syndicalist Internationale and is freely distributed among schools across Europe,Africa and Asia. Starting in 1951, it has featured maps and information about the members states of the Internationale. While the first few versions where rudimentary, it has since expanded and features information and maps from everything from industry and population density to agriculture. It gets most of it's figures from the respective countries government but has since tried to gather it's own results. Here is a small excerpt from the 1961 edition on the agriculture and horticulture of the Low Countries
where is the dislike button
(those straight lines mean literally nothing; they're not even longitude/latitude)
Images detailing the changes in my TC Rail Network Project Thingywing™ (entries for better names are being taken). Black lines indicate new routes
Long Distance trains are:
- Empire Builder (7/8) listed due to modified route
- North Coast Hiawatha (9/10) Chicago-Seattle via Current Builder route to Fargo, Bismark-Missoula-Yakima from points west
- Twin Star Rocket (17/18) TC-Houston via Des Moines, KC, El Reno, OKC, Ft Worth, Dallas, and Corsicana
- Mill Cities Limited (32/33) TC-KC via Omaha
- Black Hills Limited (33/34) Worthington - Rapid City with Sioux Falls - Sioux City leg
- Two Rivers Limited (37/38) Chicago- Grand Forks via the current Builder route
- BHL(133-134) The Sioux City - Souix Falls leg
- Twin Cities Hiawatha (35/36) TC-Chicago via the current Builder
- Northern Lights Express (100-109) Duluth-TC, 105/106 become TCH and provide run-through service to Chicago
- unnamed/unnumbered TC-Rochester service: added today so no other details .-.
That yields a total of about 25 million in OTL. I'll frankly admit: your number of 32 million was much closer than my guess of 10 million. (Brazilians are way less concentrated in the south than they use to be!) It still yields an OTL-ATL difference of some 15 million people. Somewhat more manageable, but still not something the Amazon can support and remain ecologically sound. The region is threatened in OTL, after all. 15 million extra is literally just half as bad as 30 million extra, but it's still a huge crisis. You've really created a disaster scenario here!
Not necessarily. The are a lot of countries that have large populations and small amounts of land. Japan for instance has 127m people in a small area and is a net food importer. Even at 40m, it's possible that sustainable and green could work under these circumstances for Amazonia. Probably unlikely, but possible.
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I had the same thought. It really looks like mid-century textbook atlas.
The entries aren't all in yet, but it's going to be a tough call between this and Amazonia.
And possibly others too. I haven't looked closely at them all yet.
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I superimposed our Earth on top. Ace Combat really made Osea and Yuktobania huge.
Skallagrim
Banned
The crucial factor, as far as I can tell, is that a certain coastal area (to the direct south-east of where the Amazon Basin is marked as meeting the ocean on @B_Munro's map) is included in the country of Amazonia. That area is densely populated in OTL, so including it makes a difference. On the other hand, Amazonia includes less of Peru, Bolivia etc. than the actual Basin does (because Amazonia stops where the Andes mountains begin, rather than at the actual continental divide/watershed), but included a bit more of coastal Brazil. So it misses some pretty large areas that are sparsely populated, but has one small extra area that is densely populated.
It could work in theory, but Japan is not quite the same kind of ecological zone as the Amazon. I get the impression that the Amazonian economy is based near-entirely on the profts from mining, logging etc. -- the exploitation of resources. Because of the profits, Amazonia can import what else it needs. That exploitation is unsustainable, and must stop. So no more profits. So how do you import what you need? It's not coming for free. The alternative is to be selfsustainable, which at the very least means feeding your people. Which means agriculture. Which means cutting down rainforest. Which is just as unsustainable as what's happening in the ATL at present.
Amazonia needs an economic shift to a set of activities and sectors that can generate revenue without wrecking the ecology. If the right-wing rulers hadn't been idiots, they'd have started shifting to IT services en masse in the late 1990s / early 2000s. Anything that can make you foreign money without despoiling your own land. Let the rest of the world put its help desks and its accountants' offices in Amazonia. Get some nifty banking laws and become the Switzerland of the Western Hemisphere.
Bu 2018, it's probably a bit late to execute such a shift smoothly, but if the opponents of the Christian leage want a viable plan, something like that is their best shot. The Greens could push for making Amazonia the world's leader in green energy, and might get substantial UN financing for such efforts. If there's a way out, that should probably be it...
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P.S. -- It suddenly occurs to me that it's funny gow @Upvoteanthology stresses vehemently "I'm no longer making maps!"... while making an awesome map which then provokes interesting, polite, in-depth discussion of population distribution in South America and the various ways economic reforms could viably support larger populations.
markus meecham
Banned
Don't forget about soil quality in the amazon forest, any mismanagement of it carries a HUGE desertification risk. Wonder how all that green keeps being green? it keeps being so because of the organic matter that falls to the ground, dig less than half a meter and you'll find a ridiculously sandy soil, removing the trees basically stops this cycle of fertility.The crucial factor, as far as I can tell, is that a certain coastal area (to the direct south-east of where the Amazon Basin is marked as meeting the ocean on @B_Munro's map) is included in the country of Amazonia. That area is densely populated in OTL, so including it makes a difference. On the other hand, Amazonia includes less of Peru, Bolivia etc. than the actual Basin does (because Amazonia stops where the Andes mountains begin, rather than at the actual continental divide/watershed), but included a bit more of coastal Brazil. So it misses some pretty large areas that are sparsely populated, but has one small extra area that is densely populated.
It could work in theory, but Japan is not quite the same kind of ecological zone as the Amazon. I get the impression that the Amazonian economy is based near-entirely on the profts from mining, logging etc. -- the exploitation of resources. Because of the profits, Amazonia can import what else it needs. That exploitation is unsustainable, and must stop. So no more profits. So how do you import what you need? It's not coming for free. The alternative is to be selfsustainable, which at the very least means feeding your people. Which means agriculture. Which means cutting down rainforest. Which is just as unsustainable as what's happening in the ATL at present.
Amazonia needs an economic shift to a set of activities and sectors that can generate revenue without wrecking the ecology. If the right-wing rulers hadn't been idiots, they'd have started shifting to IT services en masse in the late 1990s / early 2000s. Anything that can make you foreign money without despoiling your own land. Let the rest of the world put its help desks and its accountants' offices in Amazonia. Get some nifty banking laws and become the Switzerland of the Western Hemisphere.
Bu 2018, it's probably a bit late to execute such a shift smoothly, but if the opponents of the Christian leage want a viable plan, something like that is their best shot. The Greens could push for making Amazonia the world's leader in green energy, and might get substantial UN financing for such efforts. If there's a way out, that should probably be it...
--
P.S. -- It suddenly occurs to me that it's funny gow @Upvoteanthology stresses vehemently "I'm no longer making maps!"... while making an awesome map which then provokes interesting, polite, in-depth discussion of population distribution in South America and the various ways economic reforms could viably support larger populations.
I think upvoteanthology's scenario there is quite optimistic, given that.
EDIT: a developing country that is going balls to the wall on mining would probably be the victim of some small fuckups such as this
i have cold sweats thinking about such a thing happening in the amazon basin.
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That’s the point, it’s 100% arbitrary based on somebody else’s needs and completely ignores local geography and population groups.
Deleted member 87099
IIRC, the Europeans ignored local ethnic groups but not typically local geography.
damein fisher
Banned
Look at a map of post scramble Africa, I count maybe 5 straight lines [barring borders between colonies of the same nation Like Algeria/French West Africa/French Equatorial Africa]
Alex Richards
Donor
I cannot think of a single colonial border outside the Sahara that was 100% arbitrary- and the worst offender outside of that is Ethiopia which, well, was the result of the Emperor's of Ethiopia conquering vast swathes of neighbouring land outside the traditional heartlands.
I mean just to throw out a few examples here, the borders of Tanzania follow:
-The most arbitrary border is that with Kenya, where the British exchanged ownership of Mount Kilimanjaro for that of Mombasa.
-From there it cuts across Lake Victoria and across a bit further arbitrary line, before joining a river and following that to the border of Rwanda.
-Rwanda and Burundi are virtually unchanged from the borders of their respective pre-colonial kingdoms
-Then the rest of the border follows lakes, rivers and ridge lines.
Really cool, though I noticed a minor error. Spokane is actually in Washington State, not Idaho like in the map.
It does show Spokane in Washington on the original map. It's just that the dot showing where the city is at is really small, and the word spills over into Idaho.
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