Historical maps are used as evidence in disputes more often than historians would like.
A map is an argument drawn to a , produced by somebody with a purpose and a limited .
Early maps recorded what a state claimed, what a traveller reported and what a printer could fit on a sheet.
Treating such a document as a photograph of a border is a category error.
That does not make maps worthless as evidence, and it changes what they can prove.
A series of maps from different states showing the same feature in the same way is strong evidence of a shared understanding.
A single map from an interested party is evidence of a claim and of nothing else.
have applied this distinction consistently, and public argument rarely follows it.
The physical matters as much as the content.
determines whether a map can be , and many circulating images have no recorded origin.
A photograph of a map on a website is not a source, however many times it is reproduced.
Digitisation programmes have therefore done more for this field than any new discovery.
A catalogued, dated and photographed collection allows a claim to be checked in an afternoon rather than in a career.
Several disputed claims have quietly disappeared once the underlying documents became accessible.
That is the ordinary way a historical argument ends, and it rarely produces a headline.