A great new article to read (and see beautiful maps): Inside the Secret World of Russia’s Cold War Mapmakers | WIRED
The Soviet military mapped the whole world in incredible detail, not just for possible battlefields if another world war broke out, but also as a means of storing as much data as possible in a readily accessible and elegantly displayed format for intelligence and economic analysts in the pre-computer era. In the 1990s, after the Soviet Union had ended and the maps got out, the U.S. government and telecommunications companies used the maps of the developing world to supplement their own knowledge bases. The maps have also proven critical in guiding resolution of disputed borders because the Soviet cartographers had carefully examined and recorded all relevant historic details and documents that might influence them.
