squidpants

so the dispute about who owns the North Pole has been in the news lately - the Russians sent a sub under the ice to symbolically claim it, while other countries objected - Canada says they own it, and Norway and the US are getting into the act. Everybody has different reasons - we're closer, our continental shelf goes there, etc.

I've noticed that Canada's maps are reflecting their claim, like this one from a government website, which shows the territory extended into the ocean all the way to to pole. However, most non-Canadian maps only show the land itself, not the claimed or economic zone or anything (like the CIA World Factbook one, for example).

Maps and things are always political, like this article shows. Other examples are maps made by China which show Taiwan as part of China, maps by Argentina including the Falklands, etc. It's kind of an interesting method of information warfare. For example, Wikipedia has the map of Canada that shows the border to the North Pole, which I assume was added by a Canadian.

I guess this might happen in Antarctica if they discover minerals there. I hope there aren't any Hoth type battles or killer Arctic space monsters though.