I have two maps of the Iberian peninsula of Spanish provenance. The older one dates back to 1967 and the dark days of the monorchid murderer, Franco; the other is dated 1991. One of these shows the location of the ancient city of Gernika (Guernica), the other doesn't acknowledge the city's existence. I needn't bother to say which of the two is the true representation.
I was reminded of this while watching a programme on maps on BBC4. The series on cartography explains how maps were produced for political and propaganda purposes and were used as indicators of status and power. It made me wonder how well Israeli cartographers are coping in mapping a nation whose borders are elastic, and whose land mass includes territory claimed by Israel, but not recognised as Israeli by other nations. "Hold it, lads, here comes an update."
I also thought of all the extant nations that did not exist when I was born. Israel, Pakistan, Bangla Desh, Mali, Burkina Fasso, Vietnam, Taiwan, etc., etc. There are countries that didn't exist when my kids were at school; Eritrea, Moldova, Slovakia, Croatia. I believe Montenegro's a sovereign nation these days, but I'm not certain about that. Then there's the "Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia", whose name is the product of a Greek nightmare.
When my parents were in their infancy there was no Iraq, Kuwait, Jordan (or Transjordan) Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia. So the cartographers will never be out of work, but how they must be praying for a less disputatious world population.
Countries come and go, and borders shift back and forth. I recall reading in one of Eric Hobsbawm's works that it was possible for an individual living in some district in the Carpathians in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to have been a denizen of five different countries without ever leaving their birthplace. Some borders are just lines on a map. So there was a pub on the border of Northern Ireland and the Republic which straddled the border. As closing time came in one local authority the patrons would move to the other end of the room and carry on drinking legally.
Then there was the bloke whose house straddled the border between Russia and Poland. He was ordered to claim citizenship of one or the other. He chose Poland, and when asked to explain his choice, said he couldn't stand the Russian winters.