When the world's at stake,
go beyond the headlines.

This is the fourth 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.Maps, inevitably, must strike a balance between conveying the complexity of the world and simplifying it in some useful way. At one extreme is the fable of the map drawn at a scale of 1:1, which is so precise that it covers the entire territory it depicts. Towards the other end of the spectrum is the conventional metro map, which stylizes subway routes and stops into lines and dots for the convenience of commuters. But when it comes to simplifying, some cartographers get carried away. Heinrich Bünting was one of them. Heinrich Bünting, Clover Leaf Map from The Travel Book of Holy Scripture, Magdeburg, 1581.His famous 1581 clover leaf map answers the longstanding question of what the world would look like if it was drawn to look exactly like a clover leaf. The answer, of course, is exactly like a clover leaf, but with brighter colors and more sea monsters. Bünting has added some additional flourishes. The Red Sea is colored red, England appears slightly squished off the coast of Europe, and a massive Scandinavia hangs like the blob of Damocles over the whole world. America has been added almost as an afterthought in the corner, with a despondent mariner floating alone in the Atlantic. In fairness, Bünting’s woodcut aspired to theological rather than geographical precision. It was published as part of a collection titled The Travel Book of Holy Scripture, which also included fanciful maps showing Europe in the shape of a virgin Queen and Asia in the shape of