Mid-Afternoon Map: 02/09

This is the first installment of Mid-Afternoon Map, our exclusive members-only newsletter that provides a cartographic perspective on current events, geopolitics, and history from the Caucasus to the Carolinas. Subscribers can look forward to interesting takes on good maps and bad maps, beautiful maps and ugly ones — and bizarre maps whenever possible. Over the past decade or two, map enthusiasts and Middle East observers alike have been treated to a series of fanciful maps imagining what alternative borders for the region might look like. The premise behind many of these cartographic proposals is that replacing the artificial boundaries imposed on