The map above is possibly one of the least useful (and also vaguely racist) ethnic maps ever created. Titled “Present Distribution of Europeans, Chinese, Japanese and Negroes,” it was published in William R. Shepherd’s 1911 Historical Atlas.
Essentially the map boil down the world into three ethnic groups: Europeans, Chinese and Japanese (because they view themselves as the same…) and Negroes. There are so many things wrong with the map that it’s difficult to know where to begin.
For one, it leaves out the majority of the world’s peoples such as Indians, Arabs, Persians, Indigenous peoples, etc., erasing them from the map. For groups that are included, they’re all just lumped together as if they’re the same.
Finally, the map is Eurocentric in the extreme. It vastly overstates the share of people of European ancestry living abroad. For example, if you only used this map as your point of reference, you’d think that all of coastal India and Indonesia were filled with Europeans.
Of course, all mapmakers have to choose what to include and exclude from the maps they make. Unfortunately, so much is excluded, and what’s included is highly suspect, that this map is at best useless in telling you about how the world looked in 1911.
This a shame because many of the other maps from the book are fascinating. You can have a look at them on the Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection for free.
Notice anything else strange about this map? Leave your comments below:
erik smit says
I am wondering what all the unexplained colors are supposed to mean…
Christian Beiwinkel says
About 50 years later, German Geographer Albert Kolb published a map showing the 10 different “cultural worlds” (Europe, Russia, North America, Latin America, Orient, Black Africa, Eastern Asia, Southern Asia, Southeastern Asia and Australia). You would think that in those 50 years, geographers would be able to produce more differentiating maps depicting the world’s different cultures. And then, another 40 years passed and Sam Huntington based an entire book (“The Clash of Civilizations”) on that same idea of cultural worlds. This book is now one of the most read books at colleges across the United States… just a little reminder about how far we’ve gotten since this “vaguely racist” map was published.
DHW says
Turn the virtue signaling down to a dull roar, guys.
Disappointed says
The map is literally titled “distribution of those 4 groups” not every ethnic division, this is a lazy article and I think less of your site for publishing it.