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u/FixerVictor 6h ago
Can't be real, the borders follow actual ethnic distributions too well.
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u/Thekilldevilhill 6h ago
Yeah exactly. The person who made this map doesn't understand the problem in, for example, Africa. The problem isn't straight borders... I better one would be a border that runs from bordeaux to Berlin and from Berlin to ~ athens and call everything to the south of that border one country.
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u/soccer1124 6h ago
Was coming to echo the same sentiment.
Although, as a side note: I currently live in Belgium, and this country definitely feels like a country colonized by Europe. They just smashed French and Dutch together, and then sprinkled in some Germans for good measure.
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u/Suppenspucker 6h ago
Sprinkled some Germans in for good measure. Nice. Thanks. Good to hear as a German. In the 2000s I tried to sprinkle the Dutch, but my success was sparse.
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u/Thekilldevilhill 5h ago
We welcome our Flanders brothers. They (you?) just don't want to join the Netherlands hahaha
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u/soccer1124 5h ago
Not me. I'm just an American trying to make sense of it all, haha
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u/Thekilldevilhill 5h ago
Vote for (re)unification! I will even concede the name of the Netherlands to Burgundy!
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u/Khelthuzaad 6h ago
The problem with Africa is that you try to make a national country out of 1000 different tribes that don't want to unite.
And when they do,they usually go back to their own tribes instead of trying to live together after the conflict ends.
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u/DetroitAdjacent 6h ago
Europeans had a habit of making really awful borders that had no relevancy to the local cultures or ethnic groups when they were colonizing, or wrapping up colonization.
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u/Kagenlim 5h ago
I mean tbh most of it is due to the UK and they have some of the worst border gore with ireland where roads constantly move between ROI and the UK
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u/DetroitAdjacent 5h ago
They fucked up real bad with the India/Pakistan partition.
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u/Kagenlim 4h ago
Actually I feel if the partition didnt happen, india and pakistan would have just been another israel/palestine
Yes it sucks to be divided, but the differences between the muslims and hindus would have led to a far more bloody and protracted war than rn I feel
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u/DetroitAdjacent 3h ago
Its funny you say that, because Isreal/Palestine also suffers from a British land partition.
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u/NebulaNomadX1 6h ago edited 6h ago
SD-N here!
European powers carved their colonies in Africa into mainly rigid borders with straight lines
SD-N out!
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u/MaxDickpower 6h ago
That's the joke, but in reality Europeans drew borders mainly along geographical features. The straight lines were mostly drawn in places without clear geographical divisions like mountains or rivers, such as in deserts.
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u/darkenheit 6h ago
States of the USA and some countries in Africa bordered like that, with linear lines, as they colonised.
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u/Ninja_Grizzly1122 6h ago
Eastern Europe looks like the American west. Belarus looks similar to Oklahoma, while Poland and Austria look like an inverted Colorado and Wyoming.
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u/Ill_Specific_6144 6h ago
It would still be 10x as rich as africa.
Near the borders locals already speak language of bordering country
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u/morhp 6h ago
When people from Europe colonized e.g. America or Africa, they made the borders between most states pretty straight (because that was relatively easy in modern times). This image shows them doing the same when colinizing Europe.
In reality, most European country borders are usually pretty old and are more based on mountains and rivers and other natural barriers/markers.
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u/IndyBananaJones4eva 6h ago
That's how things were everywhere, but Europeans drew new borders for places they colonized.
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u/Zestyclose_Car_4971 5h ago
Is it not making fun of “Americans”? Reminds me of the US state lines, just in Europe. I’m probably wrong tho, don’t read this comment.
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u/CratesManager 5h ago
Reminds me of the US state lines,
That's a good observation. Now consider who drew those lines, with "colonised by europeans" as a hint
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u/Zestyclose_Car_4971 4h ago
I think that’s what I was getting at, something about killing natives and discovering their land.
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u/I_suck_at_Blender 5h ago edited 5h ago
National borders are usually formed naturally along rivers, mountain ranges and such.
Unless some white guy across the ocean sets soldiers to invades your country, splits it into neat rectangles without even setting foot on land and says "this will do".
USA looks like plots of industrial farmland, while Europe is place with real history and culture.
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u/umichlaw2Lol 5h ago
Famously when the Europeans colonized Africa they drew national boundaries relatively arbitrarily and with zero regard for the territories of the preexisting tribes and communities.
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