{"id":1840524,"date":"2025-05-11T16:53:59","date_gmt":"2025-05-11T20:53:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/?p=1840524"},"modified":"2025-05-11T16:55:44","modified_gmt":"2025-05-11T20:55:44","slug":"trumps-cartographic-compulsion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2025\/05\/trumps-cartographic-compulsion\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump’s ‘Cartographic Compulsion’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Politico<\/em> looks at what they call Donald Trump\u2019s \u201ccartographic compulsion\u201d<\/a>\u2014the ways that maps have turned up in his political career over and over, from his use of election maps to Sharpie-gate<\/a> in his first term, to his musings on Canada, Greenland and Gaza, plus his propensity to rename things<\/a>, in the early days of his second. That his obsession with Canada and Greenland might be chalked up to how big they appear on a map\u2014especially a Mercator projection of the world\u2014comes as little surprise. Kenneth Field covered much of the same territory, at least as far as his first term is concerned, in this 2019 piece<\/a>; for my previous coverage of this nonsense see posts tagged Trump<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Politico looks at what they call Donald Trump\u2019s \u201ccartographic compulsion\u201d\u2014the ways that maps have turned up in his political career over and over, from his use of election maps to Sharpie-gate in his first term,… More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"link","meta":{"autoblue_enabled":true,"autoblue_custom_message":"","autoblue_shares":[],"autoblue_post_url":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[330],"tags":[448],"class_list":["post-1840524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-link","hentry","category-politics","tag-trump","post_format-post-format-link"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3965,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2017\/02\/more-detailed-maps-of-greenland-coming-soon\/","url_meta":{"origin":1840524,"position":0},"title":"More Detailed Maps of Greenland Coming Soon","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"26 February 2017","format":"link","excerpt":"The Arctic Journal reports on recent efforts to produce more detailed, systematic and accurate maps of Greenland. Danish officials today announced\u00a0promising initial results of a project using satellites to collect cartographic data faster and more efficiently than has been possible using aeroplanes. The project involved using\u00a0SPOT\u00a06 and 7, two commercially\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "National Maps"","block_context":{"text":"National Maps","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/national-maps\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1786424,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2018\/10\/torontos-cartographic-birth-certificate\/","url_meta":{"origin":1840524,"position":1},"title":"Toronto’s Cartographic Birth Certificate?","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"17 October 2018","format":"link","excerpt":"A 1678 map of New France by\u00a0Jean-Baptiste Franquelin may be to Toronto what the Waldseem\u00fcller map is to America: a so-called \"cartographic birth certificate\"\u2014i.e., the first instance of a name to appear on the map. The label \"Tarontos Lac\" on what is now Lake Simcoe isn't legible on the Biblioth\u00e8que\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Antique Maps"","block_context":{"text":"Antique Maps","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/antique-maps\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/franquelin-carte-1024x621.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/franquelin-carte-1024x621.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/franquelin-carte-1024x621.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/franquelin-carte-1024x621.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1785501,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2018\/04\/alaskas-cartographic-revenge\/","url_meta":{"origin":1840524,"position":2},"title":"Alaska’s Cartographic Revenge","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"25 April 2018","format":"link","excerpt":"If Shetland gets relegated to inset maps all the time, that goes double for Alaska, which on maps of the United States gets reduced in scale too. In response, this map turns the tables by relegating the lower 48 (as well as Hawaii) to a tiny and crude inset map.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Unusual Maps"","block_context":{"text":"Unusual Maps","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/unusual-maps\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/ak-usa-map-1024x696.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/ak-usa-map-1024x696.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/ak-usa-map-1024x696.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/ak-usa-map-1024x696.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1787547,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2019\/08\/cartographic-beasts-of-north-america\/","url_meta":{"origin":1840524,"position":3},"title":"Cartographic Beasts of North America","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"1 August 2019","format":"link","excerpt":"Cartographic Beasts of North America is an interactive story map from the Harvard Map Collection. It zooms in on various mythical and real creatures embellishing a 19th-century copy of a 17th-century map of North America, ranging from cows and beavers (real) to hippocampi and manitous (um, not). [Maps Mania]","rel":"","context":"In "Antique Maps"","block_context":{"text":"Antique Maps","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/antique-maps\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/cartographic-beasts-1024x576.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/cartographic-beasts-1024x576.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/cartographic-beasts-1024x576.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/cartographic-beasts-1024x576.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1788230,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2020\/01\/celebrating-christopher-tolkiens-cartographic-legacy\/","url_meta":{"origin":1840524,"position":4},"title":"Celebrating Christopher Tolkien’s Cartographic Legacy","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"22 January 2020","format":"link","excerpt":"It turns out that I wasn\u2019t finished talking about the maps drawn by Christopher Tolkien. My latest piece for Tor.com, \u201cCelebrating Christopher Tolkien\u2019s Cartographic Legacy,\u201d went live at Tor.com this morning. It looks at the collaborative process between J. R. R. Tolkien and his son Christopher as father and son\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Maps and Literature"","block_context":{"text":"Maps and Literature","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/maps-and-literature\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/christopher-tolkien-header-cc.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/christopher-tolkien-header-cc.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/christopher-tolkien-header-cc.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/christopher-tolkien-header-cc.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/christopher-tolkien-header-cc.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/christopher-tolkien-header-cc.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1829565,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2024\/04\/xkcd-on-greenlands-size\/","url_meta":{"origin":1840524,"position":5},"title":"xkcd on Greenland’s Size","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"3 April 2024","format":"link","excerpt":"The 25 March 2024 xkcd honours Greenland\u2019s place as a measure of cartographic distortion. It\u2019s also, unexpectedly, a riff on the idea of the 1:1 scale map (cf. Borges), especially if you consult the comic\u2019s alt text: \u201cThe Mercator projection drastically distorts the size of almost every area of land\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Cartography"","block_context":{"text":"Cartography","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/cartography\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"xkcd: Greenland Size (25 Mar 2024)","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/imgs.xkcd.com\/comics\/greenland_size_2x.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1840524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1840524"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1840524\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1840529,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1840524\/revisions\/1840529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1840524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1840524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1840524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}