Southern Asia and The Near East

The borders of Southern Asia during the Interwar Period.

This detailed pocket map of Southern Asia, Eastern Africa, and the Balkans provides a colorful political overview of the region shortly before the outbreak of World War II. The chaos of the Interwar Period is simplified into a static image that clearly defines national borders, often in spite of reality on the ground. For example, ‘unified’ China was in the midst of a civil war and the apparently independent countries of Iraq, Egypt, and Bhutan were all heavily under British influence. An interesting variety of settlements, regions, and geographic features are labeled throughout the image.

While the content is from the mid to late-1930s, it’s probable that the map was published by Rand McNally & Company near the end of World War II. It shares a similar printer’s code and the same format as other pocket maps that can be conclusively dated to the mid-1940s. It was not uncommon for mapmakers to issue material showing the ‘status quo’ before the outbreak of the war.