21 Comments
User's avatar
Gnasher's avatar

Amazing, pink still the colour of the British Empire. Strange that they show the Grand Union Canal linking London and Birmingham (also the Leeds-Liverpool Canal) but leave off the Thames completely. Are they planning to invade with a fleet of narrow boats?

Expand full comment
Adhiraj Dutta's avatar

I am from the north east of India. What I find interesting is that they have omitted one of the states here - Arunachal Pradesh. It is claimed in its entirety by China as South Tibet as part of the Tibet Autonomous Region. During the 1962 Indo China war they were able to occupy parts of Arunachal Pradesh but later withdrew their forces. North Korea, being an ally of China, has chosen to depict this narrative in their official maps.

Expand full comment
Miguel García Álvarez's avatar

It makes sense they align with China on this, as geopolitically China is still the country closest to North Korea.

Expand full comment
Jeppe's avatar

Interesting piece to say the least. Did the encyclopedia contain national maps for generalised countries or did it go over a certain special interest group. Is there a map of The Netherlands?

Expand full comment
Miguel García Álvarez's avatar

There is a map for each individual country, yes. I have just added to the bottom the map of the Netherlands ;)

Expand full comment
Lex Professio's avatar

interesting, the red lines represent rail tracks, not major highways.

Expand full comment
William's avatar

Me encantaría saber si tienen el mapa de Costa Rica.

Expand full comment
Miguel García Álvarez's avatar

Hola William,

En este otro artículo que escribí en español sobre el atlas puedes encontrar el mapa de Costa Rica: https://newsletter.mapasmilhaud.com/p/un-atlas-de-corea-del-norte

Expand full comment
Dors's avatar

It might be interesting to take a look at the maps of global, or Asian economic activity. Un saludo

Expand full comment
Miguel García Álvarez's avatar

It appears that there are no maps related to economy. There are 193 country maps, 394 maps of Korea, 12 continent/world maps, 65 maps related to the Second Sino-Japanese War, and 8 from the Korean War.

Expand full comment
Frode Rosand's avatar

Is there any accuracy to what appears to be to be major highway (or train?) systems? What is depicted in US seems way off or perhaps very outdated.

Expand full comment
Miguel García Álvarez's avatar

From what I have seen, there is not much accuracy in the major highways or railway systems. Some maps, like the one for the Netherlands, seem to have been created with the intention of representing railways and roads. At the same time, you can quickly tell that there is a lot of guessing and little accuracy.

Expand full comment
Francisco  Jaime's avatar

Hola Miguel. Muy bueno el áticulo. De casualidad tenes un mapa de Argentina en este Atlas? lo podes subir? Muchas gracias

Expand full comment
Miguel García Álvarez's avatar

¡Hola, Francisco! En este otro artículo que escribí de esto en español puedes encontrar el mapa de Argentina: https://newsletter.mapasmilhaud.com/p/un-atlas-de-corea-del-norte

Expand full comment
Francisco  Jaime's avatar

Muchas gracias! ahí vooyyy

Expand full comment
J.R. Smith's avatar

This is phenomenal. Well done indeed!

Expand full comment
Mario Pasquato's avatar

The map of Japan shows a bunch of islands of the Okinawan archipelago. Does NK recognize all of them as Japanese, all the way to Taiwan? Back when I lived in SK I remember buying a pencil sharpener in the shape of a globe, and it showed Ryukyu, the historical kingdom with capital in Naha, as a separate country. I guess this was either because of the temporary US occupation after WW2 or because it has been claimed by China, since it was a tributary state before Japanese annexation. Obviously this does not reflect official SK positions. Curious to know what the NK perspective on this would be.

Expand full comment
Miguel García Álvarez's avatar

There is an open dispute between China, Taiwan, and Japan over part of the Ryukyo archipelago, specifically the Senkaku Islands (the ones closest to China and Taiwan). I have not been able to find any positioning by NK, so I presume they just went along with the details they had available when producing the map.

Expand full comment
M. E. Rothwell's avatar

So cool

Expand full comment
Doug Greenfield's avatar

This is amazing! Thanks for posting.

Expand full comment
Luke Rolfson's avatar

Is there any way to post a rip of the CD? This would be very good for archival and preservation.

Edit: You may genuinely be the one of the only people with access to this CD, so getting it onto the internet before it bitrots away would be very much appreciated.

Expand full comment