AXIS OF EVIL MAPPING NEWSLETTER # 9 December, 2009

NEW TITLES FOR THIS MONTH!

Manila ITM City Map, Paraguay, Sao Paulo/Southern Brasil, Sumatra, and Uruguay/Montevideo.

The Axis of Evil Mapping Newsletter is released irregularly. If you are not interested in receiving this newsletter, please email jack@itmb.com. Any opinions expressed are strictly those of myself and are not intended to provoke anything more than the intellect.

INTRODUCTION

       This should be a short newsletter, as we were in Chile and Argentina for most of November, and left for a conference in Korea the day after we returned. The closer we come to Christmas and Year End, the harder it is to find a printer with free time, so we won’t be publishing any more titles until January, except those noted in this letter. We’re still working, or at least our staff are, to complete updating projects, and finish off artwork for a slew of releases next month. As always, we at ITMB extend our best wishes to all of you and hope that 2010 will be kinder than 2009 proved to be.

MY THOUGHTS ON CHILE AND ARGENTINA

            Lan and I spent three weeks in Chile and Patagonian Argentina in November, driving around checking road information, and experiencing weather that ranged from sub-freezing snow winds in Ushuaia (Tierra del Fuego) to balmy spring weather in Bariloche to lovely sunshine in Santiago. We were quite surprised by the differences between the two countries. Chile is less developed touristically, but is far ahead of Argentina in mobile phone rentals. Argentina has a massive road upgrading process in place, particularly in Patagonia, whereas Chile has virtually nothing being done. Chile has one north-south highway, a privately-built divided road/expressway, with tolls every few kilometres, and nothing else. There is no way to travel from Puerto Montt to Santiago without using this single toll highway. Maintenance of the rest of the highway system of Chile is slim to nil. Argentina, on the other hand, has made the mental link between a strong infrastructure and a strong economy and is investing large amounts of money twinning heavily-trafficked roads and paving thousands of kilometres of gravel roads – all without tolls. The quality of road surface is superior to that of Chile, even for gravel-surfaced roads. Chile’s exports are dominated by copper, to the extent that a slight drop in market prices leads to major economic dislocation. There is relatively little local industry. Argentina has a broad-based economy, with a lot of products made locally. Generally, I would have to say that both countries are worth visiting, but touristically, Argentina has more facilities catering to visitors, and more touristic attractions for locals and visitors to enjoy. One Chilean that we stayed with succinctly summed up his country by saying that Santiago IS Chile. What he meant was that other parts of the country tended to be ignored and a disproportionate amount of activity tends to be focused on one city, to the detriment of an interesting city like Valparaiso. We formed the opinion while in that country that the governing authorities were taking on the task of nation building seriously by investing heavily in infrastructural development (roads, airports, schools, hospitals). Chile still tends to be a more militaristic country than Argentina, but Argentina still rather plaintively proclaims everywhere that Las Malvinas son Argentinean, steadfastly refusing to acknowledge their crippling defeat militarily and diplomatically. Sorry guys, but the ill-advised invasion of the Falklands ended in a decisive defeat for Argentinean aspirations. Denial isn’t productive.

MY THOUGHTS ON KOREA

            While we were attending the International Cartographers Assn. convention in Santiago (the actual reason we were in South America in the first place), I was invited by a delegate to address an international conference in Seoul on geographic place names. Naturally, this was flattering, and more so when the conference agreed to pay for return air tickets and accommodate Lan and myself in a five-star hotel for four nights. Not too shabby, eh?!?

The catch was that the conference started two days after our return to Vancouver. This meant that we had to fly from Ushuaia to Santiago to Mexico City to Vancouver and head out again a few hours after a lot of flight time on a new trip across the wide Pacific. Did we waver? Not for a minute! We made the flight, I made my speech, and we had a couple of nice tours, then visited Busan (Pusan) in the south for a day before flying home. Korea is a modern country, with tons of new buildings, particularly new-looking high-rise 25-storey apartment complexes everywhere. Economically, the country is well-developed, and English is commonly understood, if hesitantly spoken. Every car and truck has in-car navigation – that’s EVERY vehicle. Think of that, map publishers! There is NO market for paper maps in Korea, nor does anyone publish road maps, just educational wall maps and childish give-away maps at tourist centres that are useless.

Seoul is a huge urban complex of somewhere around 11 million people (34 million for the country – slightly more than Canada’s pop.). The city is very modern, and is moving beyond the basic ‘build-on-every-scrap-of-land’ concept that typifies ‘developing’ nationhood. However, very little heritage remains – part of a palace close to city hall, a temple on a mountain slope not close to anything, a museum – and oodles of shops and restaurants. They have found enough buildings that survived the Korean War to create a folk village south of Seoul, which is well-worth a visit, but I never saw similar buildings anywhere in the countryside. I noticed this same situation in North Korea a few years ago. Very few buildings in the country survived the fierce fighting. Most of the heritage buildings were destroyed and not rebuilt, which is a tragedy because, for the current leadership, a major issue has become the ‘proper’ name for the body of water to the east of the country. This has been known internationally as the Sea of Japan since first shown on a European-produced map in 1602 (500 years ago). The Koreans insist that the name harks back to their colonial oppression under militaristic Japanese rule (following Japan’s defeat of Russia in 1905, it embarked on its empire-building policy, conquering and occupying the Korean Peninsula shortly thereafter. Following Japan’s defeat/surrender in August, 1945, the 100,000 Japanese troops stationed in Korea refused to surrender, resulting in a joint US/USSR pincer attack to liberate the Koreans. This led to the division of the country and the Korean War, which has never ended, and is now the longest military conflict in modern times). Anyway, the Koreans really resent the name Sea of Japan. They prefer the words East Sea, which is unacceptable to the Japanese, because the Sea is to their west. Personally, I think that it would make better political capital for the Koreans to invest in memorial sites to remember their recent history. Korea is a nice modern country to visit, but not in the wintertime. The food is excellent, the people are friendly (except car rental agencies), the trains are fast and relatively inexpensive, reasonably priced accommodation is readily available throughout the country, especially close to railway stations, and mini-grocery stores abound. Prices are close to American.

ITMB Titles Out of Stock at the moment:

Alberta/BC, Botswana, Georgia, Germany, Guianas Region, Lima, Mexico Baja California, Papua New Guinea, Togo/Benin, and US Virgin Islands.  

NEW ITMB ARTWORK CLOSE TO COMPLETION or AT PRESS

            At the moment, we have six titles at press. Our new Chile and Argentina Road Atlas is at press, but we are adding new information gleaned from three weeks of extensive research in the region, so we expect it in February. Botswana has been combined with our Zimbabwe map to create a new double-sided title called Botswana/Zimbabwe. The Zimbabwe map will also continue as a separate title, for those not including Botswana in their travels. We are expecting this new title in January. We have replaced the artwork of our Germany map with brand new artwork that is much more detailed than our previous version. The style will be similar to France and Spain, as released earlier in 2009. This map is at press and expected early in 2010. Lima and Central Peru is another new title, but is of course a re-working of our previous map of the city, which had a map of southern Peru on its reverse. As we already have southern Peru on the Cuzco map, it seemed more appropriate to centre attention more on the middle portion of Peru for this map. It has just gone to press and is expected in late January. Algeria has just gone to press, as has BC’s Lower Mainland (both expected in late January).

Our Europe Railway Map has now run out of copies and is being updated, adding more rail lines than previously were included, to make the map more useful. Georgia has run out of copies and is awaiting free time for updating.  Jakarta is still undergoing editorial checking, but looks like it too will be going to press in January. Mexico Baja California is also completing its updating process, and should go to press next month. Papua New Guinea has just run out of copies. A new edition will come out in the spring of 2010. US Virgin Islands has run out of copies, but no decision has yet been made as to what to do about this title or, for that matter, our entire Caribbean series. Uzbekistan has returned from the cartographer and is undergoing editorial checking.

NEW TITLES November and December, 2009  This completes our mapping program for the year.

Beijing and the Great Wall of China 3^rd Ed. 2010 1:23,000/1:280,000 waterproof ISBN 9781553416012 UPC 815534160157 $8.95cdn/us, E6.95 6.99GBP – Beijing is on the must-see list for any visitor to China. This updated edition includes new information post-2008 Olympics, such as the new subway line (No. 4) that has just been opened, plus new information about further extensions and lines being developed. The other side of the map is just as interesting. It covers the portion of the Great Wall of China that all visitors see, near Badaling, and also shows those sections that have disappeared over time, or have fallen into disrepair. As well, the famous Ming tombs of former emperors is also shown, as well as the Marco Polo bridge on the western edge of Beijing, so-named in honour of the famous trader/explorer who set out from this point on his return trip to Europe. This time, we have printed our Beijing/great Wall map in durable ITM plastic; printed double-sided. AVAILABLE.

Botswana, including Zimbabwe, Travel Reference Map 2010 – is at press, expected January sometime.

Chile & Argentina ITM Travel Atlas (including Easter Island) is at press but has been delayed, to enable improved road information to be added.

China ITM Travel Atlas 1^st Ed. 2010 124 pages, scale 1:2,500,000 ISBN 9781553410751 UPC 815534107503 $19.95cdn/us, E14.95 14.99GBP – China is growing in importance touristically as well as economically. The size of the country makes it difficult to portray this vast geographic entity favourably on a sheet of paper, even double-sided. The answer until now has been to divide China into segments. Now, for the first time, China is available in an enhanced scale in a book format that is compact in size, light-weight, and detailed enough for backpackers, businessmen, and those on a tour. China itself is portrayed on 76 pages of detailed maps.  Two pages of Lhasa maps follow, then 11 pages devoted to Beijing, 7 to Shanghai,  8 to Hong Kong, and 8 more to Guangzhou(Canton). This is a milestone publication, the first-ever book map of China by a non-local firm, in English/Romanized print – easy to understand, easy to use – and it is AVAILABLE NOW!!!

Delhi/Northwestern India Travel Reference Map 1^st Ed. 2010 1:45,000/1:1,900,000 ISBN 9781553416197 UPC 815534161987 $10.95cdn/us E6.95 6.99GBP – Our ITM series of maps related to the Indian Sub-continent continues to expand with this double-sided map. Delhi/New Delhi is, of course, the capital and governmental centre for this large and populous country. It is also an impossibly spread out city to map, but we have done our best to present this enormous urban area attractively. Now, here’s the surprise in this map – the reverse side covers that part of India bounded by Lucknow and Varanasi (formerly Benares) in the east, to Jaipur in the west, and the disputed territory of Kashmir in the north. It’s a lovely map, and completes our sectional coverage of India. Printed on paper, AVAILABLE.

EarthBall Inflatable Globe 16”/40cm  in sealed display bag with header ISBN/UPC 081539736264 $17.95cdn, $14.95us, E11.95, 10.99GBP – Well, this is something new for ITMB!!! The EarthBall is actually manufactured by a small firm in the States and we are handling their international marketing. The EarthBall is a physical globe of the world as seen from outer space (no place names overlaid) created with NASA satellite photos. The world’s major cities glow in the dark and the sealed polypak includes a 16 page Global Handbook of educational activities. Here are a couple of endorsements: “The EarthBall is an incredible reality globe of our world” and “It’s one of the most amazing kid magnets I’ve ever seen!”. This is a different ‘packaging’ of a map than is normally provided by ITMB, but is good quality, test-marketed in Canada, USA, Italy, and the Czech Republic, and is now being offered to all of ITMB’s distributors and retailers at normal discounts, and, of course, to all of our web site customers. It has been available in our retail location for the past three years, and is one of those timeless products that never dates, never changes, and has an eternal shelf life. Fortunately, it is also a good selling item that is AVAILABLE.

Germany Travel Reference Map 2^nd Ed. 2010, waterproof, ISBN 9781553412205 UPC 815534122063 $12.95cdn/us, E8.95 7.99GBP– has been printed and will be available at the beginning of January. Please add to your inventory and place orders. Description will be included in the next newsletter.

Lima and Central Peru Travel Reference Map 2^nd Ed. 2010 – is at press and expected in late January.

Lower Mainland (BC) and the New Westminster area Topographic/Recreation Map 92G&92G2 2010 1:250,000/1:50,000 – is at press and due late in January.

Manila ITM City Map 1^st Ed. 2010 1:12,000 ISBN 9781553416739 UPC 815534167323 $10.95cdn/us, E6.95 6.99GBP – Manila is the capital of the Philippines and a historic city, as well as a major economic and governmental centre. It is also a very big, sprawling city, like many in Asia, and difficult to map. We have prepared a double-sided map of the city, divided north/south, from Quezon City in the north to the new Alaya shopping centre and the world trading centre in the south. The heart of Manila is the area just north of the Pasig River, with its bustling streets and many shops. The hotel region is south of the river, close to the ocean, and we have done our best to show the hotels well, but there are too many to show all of them. This is an excellent map of a major Asian city; one that has never been mapped to this extent for travel previously. AVAILABLE.

Paraguay Travel Reference Map 2^nd Ed. 2010 1:800,000 ISBN 9781553413707 UPC 815534137098 $12.95cdn/us, E8.95 7.99GBP – This map has been given a thorough ‘going over’ by our editorial staff to add more road information, correct errors that sometimes occur in first-edition maps, and to make the appearance of the map more pleasing (we hope) to the end-users. Now, Paraguay, although it has an interesting history, does not have a wealth of touristic points of interest, but it does have a world heritage site in the south (Trinidad Jesuit Ruins). Much of the land consists of vast ranches, or Estancias. The cover has also been given a fresh look. This map, including a large inset of the Asuncion area, is a big improvement on the former one. AVAILABLE.

Sao Paulo and Southern Brasil Travel Reference Map 2^nd Ed. 2010 1:12,500/1:2,200,000 ISBN 9781553416876 UPC 815534168726 $10.95cdn/us, E6.95 6.99GBP – Brasil is a huge country of growing economic importance, and of great touristic importance. Sao Paulo is one of the two ‘great cities’ of South America, and deserves to be better mapped than has been the case in the past. This new map updates all of our information on this vibrant city and now adds a new map on the reverse side covering all of densely-populated Southern Brasil, to Belo Horizonte in the north, and Rio Grande in the far south. For good measure, we have included a large inset of central Rio on the map. Printed on paper, double-sided, AVAILABLE.

Sumatra Travel Reference Map 1^st Ed. 2010 1:110,000 ISBN 9781553415442 UPC 815534154422 $12.95cdn/us, E8.95 7.99GBP – This double-sided map has taken longer than expected to come into print, but we think that the wait is worthwhile. Sumatra is the large island west of Java, and extends our detailed mapping of Indonesia by providing a vibrant map of a beautiful but earthquake-prone part of the Indonesian archipelago. Due to its shape and setting, the map also includes Singapore and the southern portion of the Malay peninsula. The two main access points to Sumatra are by ferry from Singapore via Batum Island, and from Java, or by air. This map also extends our islands of the world series, which includes Borneo, Bali/Lombok, Java, and New Guinea (in preparation). Touristically, Sumatra is not well-known, so is ideal for experienced travellers to explore. The island offers several hot springs, royal palaces, colonial towns, and national parks. The map also includes generous inset maps of Medan, Padang, and Palembang. Printed on paper, double-sided; AVAILABLE.

Uruguay and Montevideo Travel Reference Map 3^rd Ed. 2010 1:800,000/1:10,000 ISBN 9781553414544 upc 815534145437 $12.95cdn/us, E8.95, 7.99GBP – Uruguay is a small country by South American standards, but its compactness also means that everything is accessible and from a traveller’s perspective, visitable in a reasonable amount of time. It is also very ‘European’ in its culture, cuisine, and people. This is our third version of the country and this edition updates information and changes the data base language to a more modern version, giving greater clarity to the line work and emphasizing place names. The Montevideo map on the reverse side has been updated, and inset maps of Colonia and Punta del Este have been added. Printed on paper, AVAILABLE.

TITLES THAT ARRIVED IN SEPTEMBER and OCTOBER, 2009

Angola Travel Reference Map 1^st Ed. 2010 1:1,300,000 ISBN 9781553411109

Costa Rica Travel Reference Map 7^th Ed. 2009 1:315T ISBN 9781553411826 waterproof

Cuzco and Peru South Travel Reference Map 3^rd Ed. 2009 1:10,000 ISBN 9781553415473

Everest Travel Reference Map 1^st Ed. 2009 1:100T ISBN 9781553415527

Manhattan/East Coast USA Travel Reference Map 2^nd Ed. 2010 1:12,500/1:2.3M ISBN 9781553416838

Quito and Northern Ecuador Travel Reference Map 2^nd Ed. 2009 1:12T/1:650T ISBN 9781553416586

Seoul (and South Korea) Travel Reference Map 3^rd Ed. 2010 1:15,000 ISBN 9781553412762

South Korea and Seoul Travel Reference Map 3^rd Ed 2010 1:550,000/1:15,000 ISBN 9781553412762

Spain and Portugal Travel Reference Map 2^nd Ed. 2010 1:900,000 ISBN 9781553413721

USA East Half Travel Reference Map 1^st Ed. 2010 1:2,300,000 ISBN 9781553419006