Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

All Maps in China are Transformed

home.wangjianshuo.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 119 posts

Re: All Maps in China are Transformed

#81

Post by marshray »

pyre wrote: post #56
narkee wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you suggesting that in this case the blogger is similarly misinformed or deluded? I don't think it's unreasonable to think that China is manipulating its map data, particularly when other people here in the mapping industry have already said this is well known in their field.

Seems more likely that Chinese maps make Taiwan smaller, and when people in China point to the differences between locally made maps and foreign maps, they are told that foreign map makers are playing some sort of anti-China political game. Or, people have it ingrained in them that Taiwan is small, and they all know that Chinese map-makers are politically motivated, so they assume that all map-makers are equally poli…

My take on it at the time was that she had been convinced at some point that all Western maps were made that way for political reasons. I didn't get the sense that she was reacting to the size on the map we were perceiving.

Re: All Maps in China are Transformed

#82

Post by marshray »

orijing wrote: post #73
marshray wrote: post #30

Back in the early 90's (in the US) I had a friend who was a college student from China. In the common area of her dorm there was a huge wall-size Rand-McNally map of the world. We were looking it over. "There's China" I said. "And there's Taiwan." "You know Taiwan is really not that big." she said. "What do you mean?" "Map makers show it larger than it really is in order to exaggerate its importance." I was a little…

> "There's China" I said. "And there's Taiwan." You knew her disposition. (You were her friend). What was the goal of that comment, to incent a fruitless political discussion? Edit: Whoa there. Why the downvotes? I am genuinely curious why the parent decided it was a good idea to stoke that discussion. I have friends whose political views are far from mine, and there are just DMZ topics that I don't dare bring up. Fo…

My sense was she thought she was giving me a fact about geography I didn't know, as simple as that.

Later, she, another friend from China, and I had a more in-depth discussion about Taiwan. It was really interesting to get that perspective.

P.S. I have no idea why you're being downvoted either.

Re: All Maps in China are Transformed

#83

Post by blasdel »

mrtron wrote: post #55
tokenadult wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On most maps published in the West, Tibet is shown as an integral part of the territory of the People's Republic of China, even though plenty of Americans drive around with "Free Tibet" bumper stickers on their cars. That is the GOVERNMENTAL position of the United States at present, that Tibet is part of the territory of China. (Of course historical Tibet includes regions outside the current boundaries of the Tibet A…

Here is my perspective on Taiwan grossly simplified. A bunch of Han Chinese moved to the island. The Dutch established a small colony there. Japan took over. Post-WW2 they were given independence from Japan. The pre-communist leader of China moved to Taiwan and took over politically. The KMT party ruled until recently, when Taiwan peacefully transitioned to a democracy and now has two main parties. There is nothing i…

You don't understand the problem at all.

Both PRC and ROC say that Taiwan is entirely under Chinese control, that there's only one China, and that they govern all of its territory.

Re: All Maps in China are Transformed

#84

Post by [deleted] »

barrkel wrote: post #76
orijing wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "There's China" I said. "And there's Taiwan." You knew her disposition. (You were her friend). What was the goal of that comment, to incent a fruitless political discussion? Edit: Whoa there. Why the downvotes? I am genuinely curious why the parent decided it was a good idea to stoke that discussion. I have friends whose political views are far from mine, and there are just DMZ topics that I don't dare bring up. Fo…

Facts as concrete as physical dimensions are not really open to political debate.

[deleted]

Re: All Maps in China are Transformed

#85

Post by marshray »

barrkel wrote: post #76
orijing wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "There's China" I said. "And there's Taiwan." You knew her disposition. (You were her friend). What was the goal of that comment, to incent a fruitless political discussion? Edit: Whoa there. Why the downvotes? I am genuinely curious why the parent decided it was a good idea to stoke that discussion. I have friends whose political views are far from mine, and there are just DMZ topics that I don't dare bring up. Fo…

Facts as concrete as physical dimensions are not really open to political debate.

They are until the body politic has access to reproducible data.

20 years ago most people in the world did not have access to satellite imagery or location data.

Even today, in this thread right here, we're still trying to figure out whether or not the the misalignment of the road data and the satellite images is merely a coordinate system error or a systematic attempt to deceive.

Re: All Maps in China are Transformed

#86

Post by marshray »

blasdel wrote: post #83
mrtron wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is my perspective on Taiwan grossly simplified. A bunch of Han Chinese moved to the island. The Dutch established a small colony there. Japan took over. Post-WW2 they were given independence from Japan. The pre-communist leader of China moved to Taiwan and took over politically. The KMT party ruled until recently, when Taiwan peacefully transitioned to a democracy and now has two main parties. There is nothing i…

You don't understand the problem at all. Both PRC and ROC say that Taiwan is entirely under Chinese control, that there's only one China, and that they govern all of its territory.

But it's an interesting question how much of that is really a facade and how much it's relevant.

Obviously, Taiwan has no plans to reconquer the mainland any time soon. However, PRC China threatens that if Taiwan formally declares independence it's back to a shooting war.

So yes, Taiwan still maintains governors for the areas of the mainland (last I heard they're all very old as they obviously are not standing for reelection back in their home district). This surprises people when they first learn of it.

It seems to a lot of outsiders like it is more about preserving the very carefully kept status quo than it is about a serious territorial claim.

But I don't really know that much about it. This topic tends to bring out strong opinions in people on one side or the other and I haven't come across many people who do know both sides who will chat freely.

Re: All Maps in China are Transformed

#87

Post by jisaacstone »

tokenadult wrote: post #42
est wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tibet is of course China Do you guys put Tibet as disputed area on like 90% of the maps in the West? Really?

On most maps published in the West, Tibet is shown as an integral part of the territory of the People's Republic of China, even though plenty of Americans drive around with "Free Tibet" bumper stickers on their cars. That is the GOVERNMENTAL position of the United States at present, that Tibet is part of the territory of China. (Of course historical Tibet includes regions outside the current boundaries of the Tibet A…

It is also worth noting, and easily forgotten, that part of 'historical' Tibet is in India.

Already been one war fought along that border.

Re: All Maps in China are Transformed

#88

Post by est »

jisaacstone wrote: post #87
tokenadult wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On most maps published in the West, Tibet is shown as an integral part of the territory of the People's Republic of China, even though plenty of Americans drive around with "Free Tibet" bumper stickers on their cars. That is the GOVERNMENTAL position of the United States at present, that Tibet is part of the territory of China. (Of course historical Tibet includes regions outside the current boundaries of the Tibet A…

It is also worth noting, and easily forgotten, that part of 'historical' Tibet is in India. Already been one war fought along that border.

> that part of 'historical' Tibet is in India.

It's also worth noticing that India was never an integral country in the past.

Re: All Maps in China are Transformed

#89

Post by blasdel »

eob wrote: post #50

Here's a completely anecdotal, "a friend of a friend.." story, but I think it's a cool yi and you'll enjoy it: A friend of a friend is a cartographer who works in DC. According to this person, the official subway map of DC distorts the true geography of the city -- and the subway lines -- as much for security purposes as it does graphic design purposes. The red line, in particular, apparently is drawn with a complete…

I'm a DC native and that story is bullshit.

The red line does turn south a bit going west out of Gallery Place, but it doesn't go any further south than D street and doesn't go under any important federal buildings.

Besides, what would be the point? The National Mall is absolutely riddled with tunnels! West to east there's an old streetcar tunnel at 14th Street under the Bureau of Engraving, the 12th and 9th street road tunnels open to trucks, two tunnels apiece for the yellow/green and orange/blue lines with the latter going under dozens of federal buildings, the entire Smithsonian subway station, large underground art galleries south of the Smithsonian castle, the buried watercourses of Tiber Creek, the National Gallery gift shop & cafeteria under 4th street, the I-395 Center Leg Freeway that has the DOL built on top of it, the United States Capitol subway system, the old C Street streetcar tunnel under Senate Park, and the First Street heavy rail tunnel under the LOC / Supreme Court.

Re: All Maps in China are Transformed

#90

Post by nkassis »

marshray wrote: post #51
eob wrote: post #50

Here's a completely anecdotal, "a friend of a friend.." story, but I think it's a cool yi and you'll enjoy it: A friend of a friend is a cartographer who works in DC. According to this person, the official subway map of DC distorts the true geography of the city -- and the subway lines -- as much for security purposes as it does graphic design purposes. The red line, in particular, apparently is drawn with a complete…

Subway "maps" tend to be more like generalized graph diagrams than cartographically accurate maps. After all, you're stuck in a box and your only choice is which node to get off at. But it wouldn't surprise me if an overlay on a cartographic map was intentionally inaccurate. One time I was in DC a cab driver was trying to get me to my hotel. His GPS went totally nonfunctional when we were in view of the Pentagon. It…

Interesting, I had someone report something similar next to the Canadian SIS building in Ottawa. His GPS was telling him the completely wrong route. I don't have a GPS personally to try it.
Post reply on HN