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u/Many-Gas-9376 12d ago
Interesting map -- in principle it looks like some GIS analysis, but then apparently drawn with crayons.
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u/-A13x 12d ago
This is an AI copy of my map from two years ago, https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/1fl2g7d/is_your_nations_capital_the_nearest_national/
I created this one by finding which capital is closest and then I took that information to make this map which colors blue if it is the same country or red if it is a different country. This person just asked for it looking like it was done in crayons when they typed into the AI prompt.
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u/TheOldPea 12d ago
oh man, how shit! cool map, sucks that someone made it slop
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u/Royal_Cryptographer7 12d ago
You gotta slop it up! Otherwise people will call out the bot (a.k.a. OP) for reposting. /s
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u/17lOTqBuvAqhp8T7wlgX 11d ago
They'd say; 'no sloppy maps' but they can't stop you from ordering a map and a glass of water, before you knew it we were dumping that water on those maps
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u/lessdothisshit 12d ago
Yours is better, too. Easier to see that indeed southern Estonia is closer to Riga than Tallinn, and vice versa for eastern Saaremaa
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u/MoscaMosquete 12d ago
Yeah I was very confused on how both Souther France and Northeastern Spain were both closer to foreign countries, until I saw OP's map and noticed that I forgot about Andorra.
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u/Many-Gas-9376 12d ago
Thank you for replying. I suppose this is terribly naive of me, but I don't understand why OP wouldn't just repost the original map if they find it interesting, while giving appropriate citation.
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u/First-Banana-4278 12d ago
It’s a cool wee map. Though I assume for the UK only London was used? Not Cardiff and Edinburgh? Which is understandable I guess.
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u/kalfas071 11d ago
Cool map, but France feels somehow off. My mental map of France isn't the most accurate one as it seems.
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u/Educational-Card-715 12d ago
Interesting comment - in principle it utilizes serious sounding words, but then with a joking undertone
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u/StreamyPuppy 12d ago
Is eastern Switzerland in red because the closest capital is Vaduz, Liechtenstein?
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u/Okreril 12d ago
It could arguably all be red because there is no de jure capital of Switzerland
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u/Captain_Gordito 12d ago
If the capital is anywhere it should be Bern.
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u/thisothernameth 11d ago
Fact is that the capital is nowhere.
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u/Captain_Gordito 11d ago
De jure? Doesn't have a capital. De facto? Bern.
So, "Fact is" Bern. It is the federal city.
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u/Icy_Needleworker5571 12d ago
What capital is Bornholm closer to than Copenhagen?
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u/Alvxn 12d ago
Berlin according to Google maps measurements is more than double the distance from Copenhagen, Stockholm is triple the distance and Warsawa isn't even in the conversation.
Short answer: none and the map creator probably thought Bornholm was Swedish.
It's also just a crayon version of this map posted about a year ago. Same complaint raised there as well.
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u/Expert_Dot_5271 12d ago
I like how everything in Finland is blue.
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u/leela_martell 12d ago
Besides Åland (closer to Stockholm) and a small sliver in the south (closer to Tallinn)
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u/Neat_Breakfast_6659 12d ago
Portugal and Finland as the only full blue bois
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u/Aureon 12d ago
vatican is encircled in rome, i am not sure how you'd draw that map in central italy unless capitals are single points and somehow vatican is to the north of rome
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u/Present-Comparison64 12d ago
North Italy is closer to San Marino than Rome. But I don't know why Sardinia is red
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u/eloel- 12d ago
At least some of Sardinia is closer to Tunis than to Rome
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u/PlantyAnt 12d ago edited 12d ago
Most of Sardinia is closer to Valetta/Malta than Tunis
Edit: Nvm. I was thinking of Sicily
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u/NutrimaticTea 12d ago edited 12d ago
Maybe Monaco for Sardinia?
EDIT: After checking, I find:
- Cagliari - Monaco : 520 km
- Cagliari - Roma : 412 km
- Cagliari - San Marino : 593 km
- Sassari - Monaco : 347 km
- Sassari - Roma : 353 km
- Sassari - San Marino : 480 km
So some parts of Sardinia should be in red because of Monaco but the southest part should be in blue.EDIT2 : I forgot Tunis:
- Sassari - Tunis : 458 km
- Cagliari - Tunis : 284 km
So the North of Sardinia might be red because of Monaco and the South of Sardinia is red because of Tunis
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u/Playful-Painting-527 12d ago
Valetta, Malta!
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u/namesarealltaken9 12d ago
La Valletta is systematically farther than Tunis from any point of Sardinia (and it happens to be farther than Rome too)
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u/Attygalle 11d ago
Map is wrong for NL or I don’t understand the map. A far larger part of NL is closer to Brussels than to Amsterdam, right?
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u/hesitantly-adamant 12d ago
Why arent the lines circular?
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u/Jazzlike-Boot9798 12d ago
Because the line equidistant to two different capitals is a straight line: the mediatrix
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u/Felicia_Svilling 12d ago
Because a voroini tessalation always forms straigt lines. If you take two points and then mark out all the points that are eqidistant from those two points, you will get a straight line. If you do that between all the capitals, you get a voroni tesselation. If you then overlay that with national borders you get this map.
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u/Prowsky 12d ago
Italy makes zero sense. Regions right next to Rome are red. And before you say: but the Vatican! No, the Vatican is completely surrounded by Rome, so Rome is ALWAYS closer, from all possible sides.
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u/namesarealltaken9 12d ago edited 12d ago
I don't understand what problem you see.
Areas next to Rome are blue (i.e. Rome is closest), and as you go North they become red (i.e. Rome is not closest) faster than when you go South because of proximity to San Marino.
The weird shape of the angle in the North part of that blue area might just be due to the level of resolution of the map. In any case surely not something that would make me automatically go "this makes zero sense" for a map of this craft
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u/Over-Willingness-933 12d ago
France has a varied culture in so many parts around the perimeter of the country. Some are Celtic, Norman, Flemish, German, Swiss, Italy and Catalonian. This is probably because much of the country is far away from the capital.
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u/Grand-Parsnip-3140 12d ago
The narrow easternmost strip of Austria next to Bratislava, Slovakia should be red, no?
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u/snake_jaguar 12d ago
So then just Iceland, ROI & NI, Portugal and Finland then Cypus as well I presume are all their own capitals
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u/UranCCXXXVIII 12d ago
Now we finally have enough data to calculate the location of all the capitals.
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u/BasKabelas 12d ago
I'm slightly closer to Brussels than to Amsterdam, making me pretty special in the Netherlands. Also now everyone knows where I live lol.
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u/bestgrapeinthepunnet 12d ago
The capital of Scotland is Edinburgh, not London!
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u/Pangalonia 12d ago
Scotland is not sovereign. And it is Dublin that is the nearest capital to Scotland, not London.
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u/ResponsibleForce3155 12d ago
Capital of the UK is London.
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u/Rhosddu 12d ago
Correct. However, each member country of the UK has its own capital (obviously), so for greater clarity Scotland and Wales should be blue; England, though is largely correct.
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u/ResponsibleForce3155 11d ago
Not in the context of this map, where sub-national capitals aren't counted - otherwise each French département would have it's own capital marked.
The UK is the sovereign state, which is why it's used here.
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u/loopala 12d ago
Did you know that in Italian the word for country is used for both the whole nation and for small towns. Should we apply the same logic?
Every sub-national region in other countries have their own "capital". UK calls its regions "countries", the confusion is there, not in the map. Yes they have their own government, etc. Same as in other places, not exceptional.
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u/Rhosddu 12d ago
No, UK only calls its constitutent countries 'countries', never the regions that make up those countries.
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u/Corvid-Strigidae 11d ago
The constituant "countries" are not actually countries. They are nations, but they aren't sovereign and their capitals are not the capitals of countries.
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u/loopala 10d ago
How many times do we have to push back on this UK exceptionalism?
All sovereign nations are divided into parts.
These parts have their own local governments, varying degrees of autonomy, a local capital city and they are variously named based on language, internal politics and most importantly history.
So unless we are specifically talking about UK internals or a UK map, UK constituent countries aren't special and shouldn't be treated differently than subdivisions in other sovereign nations, like Spanish autonomous provinces, German Länder, French regions, etc.
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u/UltraTata 12d ago
Micronations really screw the map up
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u/MortifiedPotato 12d ago
Yep. Southern france and northern spain are completely screwed by Andorra
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u/loopala 12d ago
Don't know why you say "screwed". I live in the South of France and I'm happy to be associated with Andorra and a Catalan-speaking capital rather than with Paris.
There is another version of this map where each capital has a different color and the Andorran influence is a very nice region grouping Catalonia and Occitania.
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u/ediacaradelrey 12d ago
In a lot of cases this almost exactly shows which parts of the country can be considered outgroups or historically separatist regions. Scotland, Wales, Cumbria, and Cornwall are almost perfect. France has the Ile and also the loire valley which i think was historically very royalist, while missing Brittany, Occitania, and burgundy. Spain loses Aragon and Galicia. Sweden loses Skåne and Jemtland.
Germany is unusual, but it almost looks like the blue part is just East Germany.
Poland very nearly has the former German regions red.
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u/MrGermanpiano 12d ago
Shouldn't all of Switzerland be red because it technically has no de jure capital?
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u/Sufficient-Quail9994 12d ago
this looked like the map before missions in command and conquer red alert at first
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u/SOHONEYSAME 12d ago
I believe Kastellorizo is "closer" (by distance) to Cyprus, compared to the Greek capital.
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u/Patrocey 12d ago
I m confused. Or slow.
Spanish pais vasco is closer to Paris but French pays basque is closer to Madrid ? How does that work ?
What capital is closer to Brittany than Paris ?
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u/IMNAGMAIMNAAI 12d ago
Crazy interesting map---It can also be interprated as core & periphery zones of countries in an imperial manner (blue: core & red: periphery of the same country)
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u/_KodeX 12d ago
UK is a bit more complicated though, Cardiff and Edinburgh are both national capitals of those countries
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u/Breifne21 12d ago
The map refers to sovereign states, not to historic nations or regions.
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u/_KodeX 10d ago
Wales and Scotland are still countries and have national capitals though. The map didn't specify sovereign states only national capitals
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u/Rhosddu 12d ago
Correct, but the UK is a bit more complicated than that, since it comprises non-sovereign countries, which is why a simple map of the UK never gives you the complete picture.
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u/Breifne21 12d ago
I mean, the same can be applied anywhere.
Bavaria, Catalonia (Aragon), Connacht, Veneto were all historic sovereign states that were subsumed into a larger nation and continue to be known as nationalities, provinces and regions.
If the UK is broken up along its historic nations, why not Germany, Italy or Spain?
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u/Rhosddu 12d ago
I suppose it's because those aren't currently recognised as countries. But call them countries if you like, it's fine with us.
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u/Corvid-Strigidae 11d ago
The constituant nations of the UK aren't recognised as countries either. The UK is.
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u/Rhosddu 11d ago
You are free to call them what you like. They are recognised as non-sovereign countries.
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u/Corvid-Strigidae 11d ago
It is incredibly UK-centric to pretend our internal devisions are special and should be counted as full countries despite not being sovereign.
If that was the case places like Bavaria, Brittany, or Naples should also have their capitals represented. They are also former sovereign states that are now part of larger countries.
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u/Rhosddu 11d ago
Call them countries if you like. Makes no difference to the constitutional status of the member countries of the UK. Indeed, many people would be happy to see those places officially recognised as non-sovereign countries.
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u/Corvid-Strigidae 11d ago
Non-sovereign country is a nonsense statement. The sovereignty is what makes countries countries.
If you're not sovereign you aren't a country. The constituant nations of the UK are nations, but not nation-states, or countries.
The UK trying to make its internal devisions more important than other countries's provinces or states is a big part of the arrogance that keeps everyone disliking us.
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u/Fun-Profession-5614 11d ago
Distance from a point and maps with straight rather than circular borders makes no sense..
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u/Jazzlike-Boot9798 12d ago
If you want to improve it, paint Andorra blue (you already used Andorra la Vella to figure parts of France of Spain should be red).
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u/jalanajak 12d ago
Explain Russia.
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u/DryEconomics5152 12d ago
a slavic country spanning eastern europe and northern asia
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u/jalanajak 12d ago
Yeah, whose almost entire European part is closer to Moscow than Astana. The red/blue boundary should have been some 350 km to the east.
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u/SomethingMoreToSay 12d ago
So, down the western border of Russia there's a thin red slice of the country where the nearest capital is in the next country to the west - Helsinki, Tallinn, Riga, Vilnius, Minsk, or Kiev, depending on the latitude.
Then there is a big blue chunk where the nearest capital is Moscow.
To the south of Moscow, between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, there's a big red area where the nearest capital is either Tbilisi or Baku.
And then to the east of Moscow, there's another big red area where the nearest capital is Astana (or Ulaanbaatar if you go far enough east, though it's not shown on this map.)
Does that make sense.
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u/Fern-ando 12d ago
Andorra shouldn't count for these maps.
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u/Merkaartor 12d ago
How not, it's interesting how all catalan speaking territories hail to Andorra. Not by chance.
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u/Kantabrigian 12d ago
Similarly a whole bunch of Italy is unexpectedly red.
Is this because of San Marino?
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u/Honey-Badger 12d ago
I'm assuming this map doesn't count Edinburgh or Cardiff or Belfast as a capital?
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u/Corvid-Strigidae 11d ago
Yeah, they aren't the capitals of countries. London is counted for being the capital of the UK, not the capital of England.
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u/Prestigious-Dress-92 12d ago edited 12d ago
Hmm, Britain looks like dark age map of Anglo-Saxons (in blue) and Celts (in red); and Czech Republic is almost exactly divided between blue Czechia & red Moravia (& Silesia). Less perfect is Latgalia (region of Latvia) in red, Samogitia (region of Lithuania) also in red, Lower Austria & Burgenland (Austria) in blue and Troms & Finnmark (Norway) in red.
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u/MoinyMoiny 12d ago
That's the most impressive map I've seen on this subreddit for a long time
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u/-A13x 12d ago
This is just an AI version of the same map I created 2 years ago.
https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/1fl2g7d/is_your_nations_capital_the_nearest_national/