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At the 'state pride' thread, people talked about how cool Maryland looked on the map. I agree. Maryland's got zazz. It excitingly combines the straight line-border and the squiggly river border. The way it sorts of divides in two is also neat. All in all, Maryland's pretty finely-shaped state. However, it probably wouldn't work as an independent nation, considering it'd look all silly by itself. No, we can't let Maryland get independent.
What other areas just look cool on the map?
Now, there's Finland, of course, though the Russians unbalanced it quite a bit by chopping off large parts of it. Greece is nice, with a good, detailed coastline. Israel creates an interesting large-small dynamic when placed on the map with all those big Arab states. It should have kept Suez peninsula, though - it looked even cooler with it. Mexico looks pretty good, but if you took, say, Oklahoma, Texas, NM, Arizona and parts of Cali and Nevada you'd get by continuing the northern border of Arizona westwards and gave those to Mexico, it'd look *super* great. Croatia is a bit like Pacman, chomping on Bosnia - I lke that. Somalia can't pull that off as well, though.
Then there are bad apples. Namibia has that silly little extension. Nepal looks kinda silly all like that, between India and China. And what about Gambia, small stretch of land inside Senegal? Haven't you ever looked at map and said "You know, I feel that Senegal should invade and annex Gambia, just for reasons of geographic prettiness"? And look at Malaysia, divided in two all like that. Disgraceful.
All in all, world could benefit from a major border restructuring. Sure, there'd be pain and suffering and all that, but my mental peace would be *considerably* increased by the prettier maps.
What other areas just look cool on the map?
Now, there's Finland, of course, though the Russians unbalanced it quite a bit by chopping off large parts of it. Greece is nice, with a good, detailed coastline. Israel creates an interesting large-small dynamic when placed on the map with all those big Arab states. It should have kept Suez peninsula, though - it looked even cooler with it. Mexico looks pretty good, but if you took, say, Oklahoma, Texas, NM, Arizona and parts of Cali and Nevada you'd get by continuing the northern border of Arizona westwards and gave those to Mexico, it'd look *super* great. Croatia is a bit like Pacman, chomping on Bosnia - I lke that. Somalia can't pull that off as well, though.
Then there are bad apples. Namibia has that silly little extension. Nepal looks kinda silly all like that, between India and China. And what about Gambia, small stretch of land inside Senegal? Haven't you ever looked at map and said "You know, I feel that Senegal should invade and annex Gambia, just for reasons of geographic prettiness"? And look at Malaysia, divided in two all like that. Disgraceful.
All in all, world could benefit from a major border restructuring. Sure, there'd be pain and suffering and all that, but my mental peace would be *considerably* increased by the prettier maps.
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