19 Declassified CIA Cartography Maps From The 1970s

The maps below all come this CIA album on Flicker. They describe the maps in the following ways:

CIA Cartography Center has been making vital contributions to our Nation’s security, providing policymakers with crucial insights that simply cannot be conveyed through words alone.

President Nixon 1970 CIA Map

This photograph shows Richard Nixon during a televised White House briefing in 1970, using a large CIA-produced map of mainland Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War. The image captures a key moment in the expansion of the war beyond Vietnam itself.

Nixon is pointing toward the Cambodia–South Vietnam border region, an area that had become strategically important because North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces used sanctuaries inside officially neutral Cambodia.

These border zones were connected to the famous Ho Chi Minh Trail supply network running through Laos and Cambodia into South Vietnam.

The map itself is very simple and highly political in purpose. Rather than showing detailed geography, it emphasizes:

Cambodia,
South Vietnam,
Saigon,
Phnom Penh,
and border regions where communist forces were believed to operate.

This was typical of CIA and White House presentation maps designed for public briefings: clarity and strategic messaging mattered more than cartographic detail.

The photograph was likely taken around the time of the 1970 Cambodian Campaign, when U.S. and South Vietnamese forces entered Cambodia to attack communist base areas.

Nixon presented the operation as necessary to protect American troops and weaken enemy logistics. Critics, however, argued that it widened the war and destabilized Cambodia.

The image reflects how maps became political tools during the Cold War. Intelligence maps were not just internal documents, they were also used to justify military actions, shape public opinion, and visually explain complex geopolitical conflicts to television audiences.

Historically, the expansion of the war into Cambodia contributed to major unrest in the United States, including widespread protests and the Kent State shootings in May 1970.

Also: Watch The Entire Vietnam War Using Google Earth

1970 Khmer Empire Map

This 1970 CIA-produced map of the Khmer Empire is a historical-political map showing the territorial reach of the medieval Khmer state centered in present-day Cambodia.

It compares two different periods of Khmer influence:

the empire at its height around 1290 A.D. (shown in pink),
and its much smaller extent by 1760 A.D. (shown in dark shading).

The map illustrates how the Khmer Empire once dominated much of mainland Southeast Asia, extending into areas that are now:

Thailand,
Laos,
southern Vietnam,
and parts of Malaysia.

At its peak, the empire controlled major trade routes and important cities centered around Angkor Wat, the enormous temple complex that served as the heart of Khmer civilization.

The map’s purpose was not only historical but also geopolitical.

Created during the Vietnam War era, it reflects American intelligence interest in Cambodian nationalism and regional tensions. By 1970 Cambodia was becoming deeply involved in the widening Indochina conflict, and historical territorial memory mattered politically.

The shrinking of the Khmer Empire shown on the map reflects centuries of pressure from neighboring Thai and Vietnamese states.

By the 18th century, Cambodia had lost much of its former influence and territory, becoming squeezed between stronger regional powers.

The map also highlights how colonial and modern borders differed sharply from older imperial boundaries. The CIA often produced maps like this to help policymakers understand ethnic, historical, and nationalist issues that could influence modern conflicts.

In essence, this map is both:

a historical overview of the rise and decline of the Khmer Empire,
and a Cold War-era intelligence tool showing the historical roots of regional politics in Southeast Asia.

Also see: Map Of Cambodia Created By The CIA

1971 Afghanistan Map

This 1971 CIA map of Afghanistan is primarily a terrain and transportation map, emphasizing the country’s extreme geography and strategic position during the Cold War.

The most striking feature is the dense mountain relief across central and northeastern Afghanistan.

The map highlights major mountain systems including the Hindu Kush, which historically made Afghanistan difficult to invade, govern, or economically unify. Much of the country’s population and transportation routes were concentrated in valleys and passes between these mountains.

The map also shows:

major roads,
rivers,
deserts,
provincial capitals,
and Afghanistan’s borders with the USSR, Iran, Pakistan, and China.

In 1971 Afghanistan was still officially a monarchy under King Mohammed Zahir Shah, before the coups, Soviet invasion, and decades of war that would transform the country later in the 1970s and 1980s.

Several geographic features shown here became strategically important during later conflicts:

the Salang Pass and northern routes connected Afghanistan to the Soviet Union,
eastern mountain corridors linked Afghanistan with Pakistan,
and remote valleys later became guerrilla strongholds during the Soviet–Afghan War.

The map also reflects Cold War intelligence concerns. Afghanistan sat between:

the Soviet sphere to the north,
U.S.-aligned Pakistan,
revolutionary pressures in the region,
and China on the far north-eastern border.

At the time, the CIA viewed Afghanistan as a geopolitical buffer state between major powers. The emphasis on roads and terrain suggests the map was designed partly for strategic and military analysis rather than simply general geography.

Historically, this map captures Afghanistan just before a major turning point.

Within a decade:

the monarchy would collapse,
the Soviet Union would invade,
and Afghanistan would become one of the central battlegrounds of the late Cold War.

Also see: Map Of Coalition Countries That Lost At Least 1 Solider Helping US Forces In Afghanistan Between 2001 & 2021

1971 East China Sea Map

This 1971 CIA map of the East China Sea is a bathymetric map, meaning it focuses on the depth and underwater topography of the sea rather than political borders or land features.

The shaded colors represent ocean depth:

lighter areas = shallow continental shelf waters,
darker areas = much deeper ocean zones.

The map’s most important feature is the chain of islands running from southern Japan through Okinawa toward Taiwan:

the Ryukyu Islands,
including Okinawa,
Sakishima,
and the highlighted Senkaku Islands.

The Senkaku Islands are marked in red because by the early 1970s they were becoming strategically important due to:

territorial disputes,
nearby shipping lanes,
and possible offshore oil and gas reserves discovered beneath the seabed.

At the time:

Japan controlled the islands,
Taiwan (ROC) claimed them,
and the People’s Republic of China also began asserting claims.

The map reflects Cold War strategic concerns as much as geography. The East China Sea was a major naval zone between:

communist China,
U.S.-allied Japan,
South Korea,
Taiwan,
and American military bases in Okinawa.

Bathymetry mattered greatly for:

submarine operations,
naval navigation,
antisubmarine warfare,
and undersea resource exploration.

The map also shows how shallow continental shelf waters extend far from the Chinese coast before dropping sharply into deeper Pacific waters near the Ryukyu island chain. That underwater geography remains geopolitically important today because maritime claims in the region are often connected to continental shelf boundaries and exclusive economic zones.

Overall, this is both:

a scientific ocean-depth map,
and a strategic Cold War naval-intelligence map focused on one of East Asia’s most contested maritime regions.

Also see: The World According To Ancient China

1973 Bantustans Map

This 1973 CIA map of the “Bantustans” in South Africa and South-West Africa shows one of the central geographic features of the apartheid system.

The colored territories are the so-called Bantustans or “homelands,” fragmented areas assigned to different Black African ethnic groups by the apartheid government.

Examples on the map include:

Transkei,
KwaZulu,
Bophuthatswana,
Venda,
Lebowa,
Ovambo,
Herero,
and Tswana territories.

The apartheid government claimed these areas were separate national homelands where Black South Africans supposedly belonged politically rather than in “white” South Africa.

In reality, the system was designed to:

strip Black South Africans of citizenship rights,
enforce racial segregation,
and preserve white minority political control.

The map visually demonstrates how fragmented and economically weak many of these territories were. Most consisted of disconnected parcels of land scattered across the country, often located in poorer rural areas with limited infrastructure and resources.

The map also includes South-West Africa (modern Namibia), which South Africa still controlled in 1973 despite growing international opposition. Similar ethnic homeland policies were applied there as well.

Historically, several Bantustans, especially Transkei, Bophuthatswana, Venda, and Ciskei, were later declared “independent” by the apartheid regime, but almost no other countries recognized them.

This map is important because it shows apartheid geographically:

not simply as social segregation,
but as a territorial system intended to reorganize southern Africa along racial and ethnic lines.

After the end of apartheid in 1994 under Nelson Mandela and democratic reforms, all Bantustans were dissolved and reintegrated into modern South Africa.

Also see: Map Of South Africa The CIA No Longer Wants You To See