371 – Charting the Cherry Blossom Front

“The man of breeding never appears to abandon himself completely to his pleasures; even his manner of enjoyment is detached. It is the rustic boors who take all their pleasures grossly. They squirm their way through the crowd to get under the trees; they stare at the blossoms with eyes for nothing else; they drink sake and compose linked verse; and finally they heartlessly break off great branches and cart them away. When they see a spring they dip their hands and feet to cool them; if it is snow, they jump down to leave their footprints. No matter what the sight, they are never content merely with looking at it.”

This lament by the Japanese author Yoshida Kenkō (ca. 1285 – ca. 1350) in his classic, Tsurezuregusa (‘Essays in Idleness’), mentions the typically Japanese tradition of hanami (cherry blossom viewing). The blooming of cherry trees (which in Japanese are called sakura) is anticipated by the Japanese with such an eagerness that it prompts the national weather bureau to forecast and chart the progress of the sakurazensen (‘cherry blossom front’) across the Japanese archipelago, south to north.

This is such a map, showing this year’s sakurazensen over the last and coming few weeks, colour-coded to reflect the transition of greens to pinks that accompanies the blossoming of the hanami.

On 20 March, the cherries blossomed over most of the southern island of Kyushu (except its southern part), the western half of Shikoku and the teensiest bit of southern Honshu, the Japanese main island. By the 25th of March, the sakurazensen reached the southern third of Honshu, taking in many of the larger cities of Japan. By the end of March – which is just around now – the cherry blossom front has moved up north to include Tokyo. All during April, the sakurazensen will creep north on Honshu, jumping across to the northern island of Hokkaido by the end of April. By the 10th of May, the cherry trees will finally blossom across most of Japan’s northern island – by which time the hanami season in the south will be long gone, the blooms lasting only two weeks at most…

Many thanks to Sara Velas for pointing me to this map, found on the Some Landscapes blog (questioning landscapes in the arts), to which I am also indebted for the Kenkō quote.

370 – Palestine’s Island Paradise, Now With a Word from its Creator

The Bible contains at least two stories equating the aquatic with the amoral. As Red Sea pedestrians, Moses and the Israelites didn’t even get their sandals moist, while the Lord did some expert smiting on the pursuing Egyptians, by way of the gurgling waters closing in on them. And a few thousand years earlier, Noah kept his binary boatload afloat while all the rest of humanity (and the now extinct species of the animal kingdom) met their watery grave.

Even though this map of L’archipel de Palestine orientale (‘The Archipelago of Eastern Palestine’) is set in the same area and uses a similar theme, the cartographer behind it refutes any allegation that it is meant to reflect the same Biblical dry = good, wet = bad analogy. “The map is not about ‘drowning’ or ‘flooding’ the Israeli population, nor dividing territories along ethnic lines, even less a suggestion of how to resolve the conflict,” gasps Julien Bousac, the Frenchman who created this map.

A small excerpt of the map (focusing on the Greater Jerusalem area) was published a bit earlier on this blog, but the map in its entirety (sent in by Mr Bousac but also earlier by Baptiste Hautdidier) merits a separate entry, not only because “without a legend, it […] gives ground to various misinterpretations, due to the high sensitivity of the subject,” as Mr Boussac relates – but also because it just looks so nice. And strange, of course.

“Maybe posting the full map would help to take it for what it is, i.e. an illustration of the West Bank’s ongoing fragmentation based on the (originally temporary) A/B/C zoning which came out of the Oslo process, still valid until now. To make things clear, areas ‘under water’ strictly reflect C zones, plus the East Jerusalem area, i.e. areas that have officially remained under full Israeli control and occupation following the Agreements. These include all Israeli settlements and outposts as well as Palestinian populated areas.”

Mr Boussac took advantage of the resulting archipelago effect “to use typical tourist maps codes (mainly icons) to sharpen the contrast between the fantasies raised by seemingly paradise-like islands and the Palestinian Territories grim reality.” The map does have a strong vacationy vibe to it – but whether that is because of the archipelago-shaped subject matter, or due to the cheerful colour scheme is a matter for debate.

Those colours, incidentally, denote urban areas (orange), nature reserves (shaded), zones of partial autonomy (dark green) and of total autonomy (light green). Totally fanciful are of course the dotted lines symbolising shipping links, the palm trees signifying protected beachland, and the purple symbols representing various aspects of seaside pleasure. The blue icon, labelled Zone sous surveillance (‘Zone under surveillance’) has some bearing on reality, as the locations of the warships match those of permanent Israeli checkpoints.

Some of the paradisiacally named islands include Ile au Miel (Honey Island), Ile aux Oliviers (Isle of the Olive Trees), Ile Sainte (Holy Island) and Ile aux Moutons (Sheep Island), although the naming of Ile sous le Mur (Island beneath the Wall) constitutes a relapse into the grimness of the area’s reality.

369 – Best Beer Map of America

Despite the quip about American beer being like making love in a canoe, the US produces a multitude and a variety of brews that belie the homogenised tastes of the most popular brands. At its annual Great American Beer Festival, the Brewers Association awards gold, silver and bronze medals to the best beers produced by the hundreds of breweriers in the US, from the largest to the micro-est.

Compiled by veteran drinks journalist (1) Rick Lyke and his son-in-law Mike Wirth (2), this map charts all the gold, silver and bronze presented by the Brewers Association since 1987. “Looking at the pages of medal winners from the past does not give quite as clear a picture as the state map showing where the winners come from,” says Mr Lyke (on this page of his blog, lyke2drink). “Clearly, beer fans in California, Colorado, Wisconsin, Oregon and Pennsylvania enjoy some of the best beers in the land.”

Top 10 medal-winning states are:

1. California – 474
2. Colorado – 322
3. Wisconsin – 232
4. Oregon – 170
5. Pennsylvania – 162
6. Texas – 133
7. Washington – 114
8. New York – 98
9. Missouri -90
10. Massachusetts – 76

Of course, this does not take into account the population size of the states listed here. The top 10, reshuffled to reflect the number of medals per million of inhabitants, looks quite different, reflecting a dominance by states with a strong micro-brewing tradition:

1. Colorado – 64.4
2. Oregon – 42.5
3. Wisconsin – 38.6
4. Washington – 16.2
5. Missouri – 15
6. Pennsylvania – 13.5
7. Massachusetts – 12.6
8. California – 12.8
9. Texas – 5.6
10. New York – 5.1

Reversing the map slogan, the “worst beer in America” is brewed in the states with the least medals, i.e. West Virginia (0), North Dakota, Oklahoma (both just 1), Alabama, Rhode Island, DC (2 each), South Dakota, Nebraska, Louisiana (4 each) and Connecticut (5).

Most highly decorated beer in America is the Alaskan Smoked Porter (15 medals; 6 gold, 4 silver, 5 bronze), followed by the New Belgium Abbey Belgian Style Ale (10 medals; 6 gold, 4 bronze) and the Genesee Cream Ale (10 medals; 2 gold, 5 silver, 3 bronze).

Even though these and most other decorated beers are produced by small “craft” breweries, it’s still the large brewing conglomerates that rake in the highest number of medals among them: Anheuser-Busch (65), Miller (55) and Pabst (50).

Many thanks to Mike Wirth for sending in this map (first version sent in late March ‘09, updated version sent in early June ‘09). Mike is a designer, educator and artist. Visit his website here.

(1) presumably a veteran of drinks journalism, and not a journalist of veteran drinks
(2) In its orginial German, Wirt (these days without -h) rather fortuitously means “innkeeper”.

368 – The World As Seen From Chang’an Street

Some maps capture the imagination and inspire so much imitation that they become icons. Harry Beck’s 1930s map of the London Underground is one of the best examples (here is the current tube map, on the Transport for London website, and here is the original map. Here and here are maps inspired by it, published earlier on this blog).

Another example is Saul Steinberg’s ironic as well as iconic The World As Seen From New York’s 9th Avenue, a comment on the supposedly self-absorbed world view of the typical New Yorker. The map (discussed earlier) has been parodied many times over, one recent example being this view of Palinworld by the New Yorker magazine, which had published the original map in 1976.

The present example, entitled How China Sees the World, appears on the cover of the current issue of The Economist and illustrates a series of articles centering on China’s rise as a world power, especially at a time of economic crisis, seemingly underlining the decline of the West. The map is of course an explicit re-imagining of the original map, including (on a billboard): With apologies to Steinberg and the New Yorker. The city is of course China’s capital, Beijing (referred to until recently as Peking – that denomination still survives in the eponymous Chinese duck dish).

Beijing translates as ‘northern capital’ (Nanjing, in the formerly prevalent spelling Nanking, is the ’southern capital’). The transliteration of the city as Peking was first introduced by French missionaries 400 years ago, and corresponded to the contemporary pronunciation of the city name. China’s capital has also been known as Zhongdu (during the Jin Dynasty), Jingshi, Dadu (to the Mongol usurpers), Cambuluc (in Marco Polo’s writings), Yanjing (referring to the ancient Yan state) and Peiping (“Northern Peace”, twice, when the capital moved to Nanjing).

Four places are named:

• the Imperial Palace: also known as the Forbidden City, the Imperial Palace is the largest palace complex in the world. Its traditional Chinese name, Zijin Cheng (‘Purple Forbidden City’), is less used today than Gugong, which means ‘Former Palace’. The complex, finished in 1420, was the location of the Chinese imperial court for five centuries, from the Ming to the final Qing dynasties. It was designated a world heritage site by UNESCO in 1987.
• Chang’an Street: (Chang’an is Chinese for ‘Long Peace’) a major avenue running close to Tiananmen Square that has witnessed important historical events due to its centrality, and that traditionally is the location for military parades in Beijing. The Great Hall of the People, the National Museum of China, the Central Railway Station and other important buildings are located on Chang’An Street, which is considered so sensitive that no commercial advertising is allowed within 100 metres of it.
• Tienanmen Square: Beijing’s best-known central square, named after the Gate of Heavenly Peace (Tienanmen) that links it to the Forbidden City. The square was the scene of many historical events in China’s history, most recently the 1989 student protests that were put down by the Chinese army. 
• Dongdan: name of a traffic node and of the surrounding region (known for its shops) on Chang’An Street.

In the ocean immediately beyond the city are a few islands of particular interest to China:

• Japan: the old rival, whose rapid modernisation preceded China’s, but now eclipsed and reduced to a few harmless islands.
• Taiwan: similarly superseded by China’s massive economic progress, but still relevant as the rival claimant to be China’s ‘legitimate’ government. Even more repulsive to mainland China is a competing strand of current Taiwanese politics, striving for ‘independence’ and thus eschewing the ‘One China’ policy still officially espoused by both the communist mainland and nationalist Taiwan.
• Hong Kong: the former British crown colony that was handed back to China in 1997 and which has been allowed a degree of autonomy unthinkable elsewhere in China (e.g. Tibet) under an agreement often referred to as ‘One Country, Two Systems’, whereby Hong Kong was allowed to retain its capitalist system and its civil liberties, including inchoate democratic institutions.
• Spratly Islands: a sprawling archipelago of over 600 islets, atols and reefs in the South China Sea, between Vietnam and the Philippines, with barely 5 square kilometers of dry land between them. Because of their strategic location, the Spratlys, or parts of them, are claimed and partly occupied by China, Taiwan, Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia – and as such are a flashpoint waiting to happen.

Across a narrow representation of the Pacific Ocean lies the continent apparently most on China’s mind – America. And especially, apart from a tiny slice labelled Canada and a small appendage being dug up for minerals called South America, the United States. The US is a crumbling empire, with the Statue of Liberty clutching a begging bowl and holding up a sign saying: Please give generously. Next to some shacks is a sign saying Foreclosure Sale (a reference to the house repossessions that are symptomatic of the credit crunch which triggered the present economic recession). Wall Street is a fault almost splitting the US in two.

Europe is much smaller and more irrelevant than America, in the ocean beyond it. All that distinguishes it are Prada and Hermes, two brands of luxury fashion accessories, and presumably very popular with the wealthy Chinese elite – suggesting that Europe is only interesting to China as a glorified shopping mall. 

Next to Europe is Africa, equally distant from China, but at least decked out with some of the implements of industry, referring to the large investments China is making in Africa, benefiting the poorest continent with new infrastructure and providing China with access to much-needed raw materials for its burgeoning industry.

Many thanks to James Hansen for sending in this scan of the Economist front page.

367 – Bethlehem to Ramallah by Boat

This map excerpt of the environs of Jerusalem is strangely reminiscent of this one, showing Belgium partially submerged along ethnic lines. Both maps solve the seemingly intractible disputes inherent in their human geography by flooding out the “other”.

The full map is entitled Un monde à l’envers (‘An Inverted World’) and can be found on page 129 of the 2009 edition of the Atlas du Monde diplomatique. It imagines the Palestinian areas, divided and separated by Israeli settlements, checkpoints and barriers, as an actual archipelago.

The excerpt shows Bethlehem as a coastal town on Holy Island, connected by ferry to Ar-Ram and Ramallah to the north, across the Jerusalem Canal. Other marine features on this map are Cape Elzariya and Cape Dibwan, the Ramalliot Archipelago and the Western Ramalliot Islands (both named, presumably, after Ramallah).

The aforementioned Atlas is a publication of Le Monde diplomatique, the French monthly magazine for world affairs. It might not be incidental to note that the editorial line of “Le Diplo” (as it is often called) is altermondialiste.

Altermondialism (or alter-globalisation) seeks to counteract the negative effects of an economic globalisation seen as too Anglo-Saxon and neo-liberal. But it also automatically rhymes with other political viewpoints, usually left-leaning, and in the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians mainly sympathetic to the latter. Which might explain why this map resolves that particular conflict by submerging the former.

Many thanks to Olivier, Baptiste Hautdidier, Valéry Didelon and Jacques Lantier for sending in this map, found on this page of Guerre ou Paix, a (French-language) blog dedicated to Israeli-Palestine relations.

366 – World War II: If Maps Could Fight

A humorous, cartography-centred look at the course of World War II, as devised by cartoon artist Angus McLeod. Thanks to Luka Rejec and Chris Medcraft for finding it here on the website Deviant Art and sending it in.

365 – A Nameless Intra-Irish Pene-Enclave

A pene-enclave is almost an enclave in the same way that a peninsula* almost is an island. But only on a strictly lexical level. If we descend from the abstraction of definition to particular examples, things get messy — in an almost clintonesque way: all depends on what your definition of almost is.

Most people will instinctively agree on what constitutes a peninsula: a piece of land almost completely surrounded by water, but for a narrow isthmus that connects it to the mainland. No isthmus, no peninsula.

You would expect the same of a pene-enclave, minus the water: it should also require a contiguous land corridor to its ‘mainland’. But most lists of pene-enclaves mention places that are reachable from their mainland across bodies of water (e.g. Ceuta and Melilla, the Spanish holdings on Morocco’s North African coast). So: no isthmus, but still a pene-enclave.

How so?

There is some justification for this different, broader definition. A proper enclave needs to be cut off from its mainland. One could debate whether being accessible only via the sea or across a river counts as being “cut off” or not. If you define that ambiguity as the almost implied in the prefix, then yes, these Isolates-by-the-Sea are pene-enclaves.

One reason for embracing this ambiguity might be that requiring a narrow land corridor makes for an exceedingly short list of pene-enclaves. Of one, to be exact. The only international example of a pene-enclave springing to mind is Jungholz, which would be an Austrian enclave inside Germany, were it not connected to the Heimat via a single point — the summit of Mount Sorgschrofen.

A single point: that’s the narrowest possible isthmus. But when does an isthmus stop being narrow? When it does, there is no longer an isthmus, and therefore no longer a pene-enclave.

I never thought I would catch a bona fide pene-enclave in the wild, but then I came across this bizarre boundary (while detail-scanning the intra-Irish border on Google Maps, as one does in one’s spare time). I am sure nobody would dispute that this pene-enclave has a properly narrow isthmus. Judging by the map’s scale (in the bottom left corner), it can’t be much wider than 100m (app. 330 ft). The pene-enclave itself continues for several kms (or miles) in both length and breadth.

The area looks to be quite rural, and is dotted with typically Irish toponyms and the occasional bucolic English one (“Rabbit Island”). It is dissected by the N3 road from Monaghan to Cavan, both in the Republic of Ireland. The N3 becomes the A54 for the duration of its brief foray into Northern Ireland — actually, its two brief forays, thanks to the pene-enclave.

However, extra information-wise, this intra-Irish pene-enclave is frustratingly un-googleable; other than that it is located between County Monaghan (Ireland) and County Fermanagh (UK), there’s not really any information to be found. The aberration remains nameless, its raison d’etre a mystery. Suggestions for a name are welcome, as are clues to its origin.

.

This map was culled from Google Maps. * the rather rare Latin prefix pene- is also used in ‘penultimate’, i.e. ‘almost the ultimate’, therefore ‘last but one’. But that doesn’t help either in figuring out the pronunciation of the full prefix in ‘pene-enclave’. Penny/pen-nay/pay-nee/pay-nay? Anyone?

 —————

Update: Drummully Polyp, or Coleman’s Island

Thanks for all your comments to this post. How great it is to be able to post a mysterious map like this one and have the commenters fill in the blanks! For starters, the previously-unnamed entity now has not one, but two names. We know a bit more about the area’s historical circumstances, have an inkling of the local head-count (onehundred-ish, and falling) and someone’s even sent in a picture of the local parish church inside the pene-enclave.

“In south Fermanagy, the most obvious anomaly [in the Irish border] was the Drummully polyp, a Monaghan DED [District Electoral Division] ‘practically enclosed’ within the North. North and South interlocked like jigsaw pieces, and the Clones to Cavan railway crossed the Border six times in five miles.”

(extract from The Irish Border – History, Politics, Culture by Malcolm Anderson and Eberhard Bort (eds.), Liverpool University Press, 1999)

 

“The soil is generally good, and there is no waste land, but abundance of bog and limestone; about 600 acres are under water. Among the seats are Cara, the residence of J. Hassard, Esq.; Lake View, of D. Smith, Esq.; and Farm Hill, of C. Crowe, Esq. The living is a rectory and vicarage, in the diocese of Clogher and patronage of the Bishop; on the demise of the incumbent of Currin, a considerable part of Drumkrin, which is now held with that parish, will be united to Drummully. The tithes amount to £19, and the glebe comprises 154 acres. The church is a small building. In the R. C. divisions it is the head of a district, including Drummully, Drumkrin, and Galloon, and has two chapels in the last-named parish : about 60 children are educated in a public and 100 in a private school.”

(extract from A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland by Samuel Lewis, 1837)

Many thanks to mollymooly for digging up these references and data. Drummully is the name of the local parish, that in 1837 had 667 inhabitants. In 2002, the Drummully DED (981 hectares) had 102 inhabitants; in 2006 this had decreased to 92. Gary McMurray (comment #44) posted a link to a picture of the parish church within the pene-enclave. 

The Drummully Polyp came up in a question to the Dail (Irish Parliament ) on 15 May 1980, about whether the helicopters the Irish Army had to use to fly its soldiers in to man checkpoints on a road that had no direct ground vehicle access from the rest of the Republic didn’t bear too much of a resemblance to British Army helicopters (which presumbably might confuse those with intent to attack British – or Irish – helicopters).

As to why it has the quirky shape it does, Paddy Matthews suggests that “presumably [the Drummully Polyp] would have been a near-enclave held by the McMahons (from whose territory County Monaghan was created) in the territory of the Maguires (which gave rise to County Fermanagh).”

Max, who has firsthand knowledge of intra-Irish border policing, has a different name for the area: “

When I had some responsibility for border policy in the 1980s this little bit of land was known by the Irish Army patrols as Coleman’s Island. It was regularly patrolled on foot by the Army because there was no way to access it by road. The border is rife with oddities; at several points it actually runs along the road, so that driving on the Northern side of the road you were in the UK and driving on the other side of the white line you were in Ireland. This wasn’t necessarily a trivial thing in the 1980s, when the British Government had made a lot of people living in Ireland the subject of so-called exclusion orders which meant that they could be arrested and imprisoned just for entering Northern Ireland. A number of people living in border counties had to adopt very circuitous routes to and from their regular destinations as a result.”Many of the commenters offered examples, or even whole lists of other pene-enclaves. Not so rare as I imagined, pene-enclaves are positively abundant if you include the subnational ones. See comments for suggestions. Some of the example mentioned (not necessarily pene-enclaves themselves) were mentioned earlier on this blog:

• Baarle (#52)
• Steinstücken (#151)
• Büsingen (#253)

As already mentioned in the post itself, the definition of what is a pene-exclave (and indeed a peninsula) hinges on how you define “almost” (as in, “almost an enclave” or “almost an island”), i.e. on the narrowness of the isthmus. But where, for example, is the isthmus of Florida, Christian quite rightly asks. And yet no one will dispute Florida is a peninsula.

The French, as Geiseric remarks, make a useful distinction, between

A word on the word “pene-enclave” itself: Greg suggested the prefix should be pronounced pen-nay (but warned against looking up the prefix pene- in Wikipedia, as this redirects to “penis”, picture and all). That link should not be a surprise, Jorge Rosa stated: “Just look at the evidence”, while Geiseric suggested the pronunciation pi-ney (as it derives from paene-), but also contracting the word to ‘penenclave’.

une péninsule (in general, any piece of land surrounded by water, attached to a larger piece of land, without the attachment needing to be narrow, i.e. la péninsule des Balkans) and une presqu’ile (where the attachment is noticeably to particularly narrow). In conclusion, as questions can be asked about the definition, spelling and pronunciation of the word pene-enclave, Aletheia Kallos (who qualifies the word as “ugly, confusing and unnecessary”) suggests a few alternatives: salient, proruption, panhandle and chersonese. To which might be added: strip – and of course polyp.

364 – Wales Is Toast

“Brendan Conway in Surrey tried to use his Wales-shaped cookie cutter, cleverly engineered by Marion in his school’s technology department, to make Welsh cakes, but Anglesey and the Lleyn peninsula kept breaking away! Luckily, toast worked better.”

A picture of this Wales-shaped piece of toast was included in this BBC picture series, showing how St. David’s Day was celebrated on March 1st, in Wales and around the world. St. David is the patron saint of Wales, and his feast day doubles as the Welsh national day. In parallel but not quite similar ways, Scotland celebrates St. Andrew’s Day (30 November), England observes St. George’s Day (23 April) and Ireland and the Irish worldwide go crazy on St. Patrick’s Day (17 March).

In recent years, St. George’s Day has become increasingly popular in England, although it is not an official bank holiday yet – as St. Andrew’s Day has been in Scotland since 2006. Whether institutionalised or not, the popularity of both days is dwarfed by that of St. Patrick’s Day, which is celebrated with masses, parades and heavy drinking (a whopping 13 million pints of Guinness are consumed worldwide on St. Patrick’s Day).

St. David’s Day is a rather more sedate occasion, centering on eisteddfodau (concerts), the wearing of traditional dress and of leeks and daffodils (both considered Welsh national symbols) and the baking and eating of Welsh cakes, or, failing that, Wales-shaped toast.

363 – Ego-cartography: the Island of Philippe Gonzalvez

 

Each Englishman is an island, they say, but apparently it takes a Frenchman to put that saying into practice. Philippe Gonzalvez made this map of his own face back in the 1980s. “I must say that by now there is much more snow on the Mountains of Moustache and that the Hair Republic has been invaded by the Federation of the Face,” he reports.

The northern part of Philippe Gonzalvez Island is taken up by the République de Cheveux (Hair Republic), bordered in part by the Fleuve Ride (Wrinkle River), beyond which lies the Fédération de la Face (Federation of the Face). Straddling both states are the Massif de la Calvitie (Mountains of Baldness) and Massif du Front (Mountains of the Forehead). The third state on the island is the Emirat de Barbe (Beard Emirate), mainly in the south. Its northern part is dominated by the Désert de la Joue (Desert of the Cheek).

The Federation of the Face is dominated by three mountainous areas: Mont Sour and Mont Cil (sourcil is French for ‘eyebrow’), and the Chaîne de la Moustache (the Moustache Range). A fourth mountain range borders the eastern coast, beyond the Desert of the Cheek: the Chaîne du Lobe (the Earlobe Range). Just south of Monts Sour and Cil are two lakes: Lac Yeux and Lac Œil (œil, plural yeux, is French for ‘eye’), each containing an island –  Île Pupille and Île Iris respectively.

The western coast is typified by two dune ranges, the Dunes du Front and the Dunes de la Mâchoire (the Dunes of the Forehead and of the Jaw), separated by the Delta de Paupière (the Eyelid Delta). Other bodies of water are the Fleuve Nez (Nose River), Lac Narine (Lake Nostril), the Marais de Lèvre (Lip Marsh) and the Fleuve Menton (Chin River). Off the northern shores lie the Îles des Tifs (Hair Islands) and the Archipel de l’Épi (Epidermis Archipelago). A last group of islands are west off the Moustache Range, the Archipel des Poils (Hair Archipelago).

The map contains some – confusing – hints as to the location of Philippe Gonzalvez Island: the meridian dissecting the island is described as being 360 degrees west of Gr. (presumably Greenwich), which would place it… in Greenwich (as 360 degrees is a complete circle). The ferry lines departing from the unnamed port city on the island’s north lead to Biarritz, on France’s southern Atlantic shore (23 hours), Marseille, on France’s Mediterranean shore (14 hours) and Ailleurs (‘Elsewhere’; 1 hour).