Waving the map for national identity: How cartography in Norway and Sweden was used as a nation-building tool in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
Journal: Erdkunde
Year: 2023

Cartography has for centuries been used as a political instrument to support national pride, impact and influence, whether through use of a national prime meridian or local toponyms, the emphasising of the country’s extent through colour, or the underlining and even distorting of its position and size through projection. In Scandinavia, the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were times of upheaval, during which regions changed political affiliation and nations formed shifting political unions.