If I were in charge of the partition of India, I’d do it bottom-up. Starting with the smallest practical districts, ask in each one: For each of your neighbors, would you amalgamate? Do the most favored mergers (skipping any that would create enclaves), and ask again.

(It appears that I had this idea first for Iraq after US occupation and later applied it to India.)

I imagine the result as perhaps a hundred unitary states in twenty confederations, each including both new republics and old monarchies.

A new thought. Suppose that, where mergers are least popular, we make the boundary permanent and not ask again. We might end up with some C-shaped states, partly divided by an internal boundary (imagine that France’s borders include the Loire). What would that mean?

How Old Is Your Globe? — Changes of state names, with dates.

Looking east from 49°00′08″ N by 122°28′30″ W. After taking the shot, I circumambulated the obelisk, widdershins.

I don’t know which emperor made this primitive earthwork defense against the other.

Cited in a comment at Strange Maps, appropriately, is this map of micronations. Its purpose is not obvious to me, but it has a goofy charm.

What happens when all the virtual land is claimed?

This strange map recently appeared in Powell BART station:

Forward is to the left because that’s the way the train goes, as seen by a passenger facing the map. What’s strange about it is that the minor branchings are true to topology but the major branching is not: the rightmost path, which ought to be on top, is to Fremont (green), followed by Dublin (blue), Pittsburg (yellow), Richmond (red).

Perhaps the designer originally intended to include the Fremont-Richmond line (orange), which on this diagram would fit like a lining within the major fork. That would make the chart more useful, because after 7 pm and on Sundays the red and green lines don’t run: to get to Fremont or Richmond from Powell, you must switch from blue or yellow to orange.

Jonny Crossbones is an adventure in the style of Tintin.

Strange Maps is a new blog of obscure and hypothetical geography. Linked from a comment there is a Regional Map of North America’s Place-Based Food Traditions, showing Maple Syrup Nation, Pinyon Nut Nation, Salmon Nation and so on.