Cartographic propaganda is a difficult concept to define [1]. In place of a clear definition, we can approach the concept through the book "Persuasive Cartography" by J.A. Tyner. In the book "Persuasive Cartography", Tyner argues propaganda maps are one of three types of maps that is understood as types of persuasive cartography. The two other categories include journalistic cartography, which certainly will have some overlap with political propaganda, and advertisement cartography [2].
Propaganda cartography in this sense becomes defined by its function. If maps are created for political propaganda measures, it can according to this categorization be identified as cartographic propaganda [3].
To distinguish propaganda cartography from the concept of propaganda in a general sense, it is useful to expand on what cartography-literature sees as defining methods of map propaganda. According to Tyner (1973) and Thrower (2007) a propaganda map, the cartographer has to be "persuasive" Boria [4], and Tyner [3] and Thrower [5], argue it is not distortion of scientific methods that qualifies a propaganda map. Rather it is the level in sophistication of what components the map holds. Tyner identifies three basic categories of maps which can be utilized to qualify the map to a propaganda map: scale and generalization, projection and lastly design and layout.
Scale refers of course to what ration the map-maker represents collected data on a map. Smaller scale forces a higher level of generalization. This is an example of why cartographers has found it difficult to conceptualize cartographic propaganda. Tyner presents two types of generalization cartographers can undertake, "objective-subjective" and "subjective-subjective" [6]. In order to make a determination if a map falls into one or the other, it is necessary to examine the context of the map. Tyner argues over-generalizations in maps are typical examples of subjective-subjective maps. Selection of what is included is a second example of the subjective map-maker. Empirical facts inconsistent with an ideology can easily be selected out of a subjective map. Scale is a third example, where Tyner presents WWII-maps which depicted Japan and Australia to be of the same size.
Projection, the method of presenting the spherical globe on a surface, is a second cartographic tool which has been subjectively applied in map-propaganda. All maps with almost no exceptions need to include a projection, making it an effective option for the subjective map-maker, and the assumption that a lay-person would not be concerned of what projection any given map has [3]. The effectiveness in a subjective sense is for the great effects a projection can have on size, shape, distance and/or direction. Perhaps the most known example of this is Arno Peters' attack on the Mercator Projection in 1972, arguing it is an ethnocentric projection [7].
The third basic cartographic tool which may be used subjectively is design and layout. Seeking attention from the reader and an effective conveyance of the message is what the main-objective of design and layout is.
Though as Tyner points out in her book, map propaganda has materialized itself throughout history, a particularly well known example is the T-O map of the powerful church of the Middle Ages. However, cartographic propaganda refers not to necessarily to the distortion of scientific methods. it is rather how the components of the map is put together and used [8]. Jeremy Black, a historian, sees the rise of what he sees as cartographic propaganda to be ushered in with the modern state (Black 1997; 2008).
Thrower cites Halford J. Mackinder as an example of applying specific projections to persuade the reader of what he is communicating through the map [5]. Mackinder, arguably one of the more influential, or at least known, academics for the foundation of geopolitics [7], used a very specific projection to make the American continent appear peripheral on his “heart-land” map-model [5].
It is the field of geopolitics in the interwar period in Germany which Boria [9] argues is a time of great development of “suggestive cartography”. Boria, by understanding the map as an inherent product of power, sees it this genre of maps as dynamic representations of power. He is also careful to emphasize the rise of this cartography preceded that of national-socialist German rule. Similarly Cairo agrees geopolitical cartography and its association with nationalistic symbology precedes the Fascist rise in Germany, and has its roots in the Weimar-republic (Cairo 200?). Herb argues in his book German geographers viewed the lack of skills in map-making as a cause of the devastating effects of the Versailles-treaty for Germany (Herb 1997).
As where Herb, Cairo, and Boria [10] sees a connection between nationalism and a production of maps, they do not argue for an explicit association between this development in cartography and fascism. Tyner more explicitly sees this period of geopolitical cartography development as a continuous process associated with Nazis and World War II. In her book, she argues the development of propaganda maps are very closely related to the wider machine of propaganda by the Nazis (Tyner 1974). Valuable for this discussion, a categorization of the different types of propaganda maps used by the Nazi-government in Germany is presented. Tyner identifies four different categories of maps, where again it is the function that defines the map. Firstly, maps used to illustrate the condition of Germany as a people and nation is identified, secondarily maps with an aim at the morale of the Allied-side in the war by increased dramatic effects on the threat levels of Germany, mental offensive through maps to keep he U.S. neutral in the war by changing the perception of threats, and lastly, maps as blue-prints of the post-war world.
In this period Cairo and Boria point out how this approach to cartography expands to Italy, Spain and Portugal [11]. Boria does however, explicitly argue the inspiration scholars from Italy find in this cartographic tradition is in the “positivistic trends of the German world” [12].
Jeremy Black points to how post-World War II U.S. would modify projections to create a menacing image of the Soviet Union in terms of a large state, and communism as expanding disproportionately throughout the world. The April 1, 1946, issue of Time published a map entitled 'Communist Contagion', which focused on the communist threat of the Soviet Union. The strength of the Soviet Union was enhanced by a split-spherical presentation of Europe and Asia, making the Soviet Union seem larger as a result of the break in the centre of the map. Communist expansion was emphasized by presenting the Soviet Union with a vivid red, the color of danger, and by categorizing neighbouring states in terms of the danger of contagion, using the language of disease: states were referred to as quarantined, infected or exposed. More generally, during the Cold War, small-scale maps served to make dangers appear menacing: with Vietnam appearing close to Singapore and Australia; or Afghanistan to the Indian Ocean. (Black 1997; 2008). Similarly, maps illustrating rocket positions used a polar azimuth projection, of course with the North Pole at its centre, giving the map reader a focus of the short distance between the two sides of the Cold War [13].