PolGeoNow
Political Geography Now reports on changes to the world political map and control of conflict zones. Visit www.polgeonow.com for high-quality original maps and articles.
- Interesting article (with map) about US law-designated "border zone" for immigration enforcement purposes, which includes most of the country's major cities and some whole states.
- From last month, some more good journalism on " #KingdomOfPapaala" on #Bougainville, probably the world's most country-like #micronation, led by financial scammer Noah Musingku www.occrp.org/en/feature/m... #independence #geography #micronations #PapuaNewGuinea #politicaleconomy #Melanesia
- United States membership in the UN's World Health Organization officially ended a few days ago, at the end of the legally-required one-year waiting period from country's withdrawal announcement last year. #intergovernmental #geopolitics #geography #UnitedNation
- Reposted by PolGeoNow"This is rather dramatic but lost in the general media turmoil over everything else - 🇺🇸 is withdrawing from 66 international organizations and treaties, most notably everything connected with climate change, democracy and rule of law." www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/...
- Major political geography event: #BBNJ aka " #HighSeasTreaty" takes effect today, meaning new laws governing environmental protection in intl. waters are now binding on 81 countries that have so far ratified it, including #Brazil, #China, #Japan, #France news.un.org/en/story/202... #geography #ocean
- For the people who think it's bad that English speakers have English names for countries that don't match the country's local-language name. (This holds for probably every language on Earth, by the way.)
- New #Yemen control #map + report for our subscribers! This one shows the height of separatist control last month (the later reversals will be covered in a future report): www.polgeonow.com/2026/01/sout... #SouthYemen #independence #geography #MiddleEast #RedSea #Houthis #GulfOfAden #Menasky #UAE
- Dear @washingtonpost.com: Three of the US's aircraft carriers have their home port within 12 miles of the border with #Mexico (in #SanDiego). Entering "waters near #LatinAmerica" is not the story here. Did you mean #SouthAmerica? #geography #geographyfail #factcheck #Venezuela
- #Egypt's New Administrative Capital has rebranded itself as "The New Capital". Officially, #Cairo is no longer the country's capital, though some government bodies still operate from there. egyptianstreets.com/2025/11/09/e... #geography #toponymy #worldmap #rename #MiddleEast #Africa
- Can't wait to read this one!
- Honored for our #Somalia control #map to have been featured in the second installment of @newhumanitarian.bsky.social's "rebel rule" series on #rebelgovernance in areas outside control of official govts. #geography #defactostates #AlShabaab #HornOfAfrica www.thenewhumanitarian.org/analysis/202...
- NOW (as of yesterday) #Canada really does say it's planning to recognize #Palestine as an independent country (in Sept., like #France). www.reuters.com/world/middle... #geography #independence #Gaza #WestBank #GazaStrip #Israel #geopolitics #PalestinianAuthority #diplomacy #MiddleEast #GazaWar
- #UK plans to recognize #Palestine as independent country if no #Gaza ceasefire by Sept. If #France also follows through, this would leave #USA as last UN Security Council veto-holder that doesn't consider Palestine a country. www.nbcnews.com/world/united... #geography #Israel #MiddleEast #Menasky
- #FactCheck: #Canada has apparently NOT so far followed #France in announcing plans to recognize #Palestine as independent country, despite today's Middle East Monitor headline claiming that. More recent source: www.cbc.ca/news/politic... #geography #Israel #independence #MiddleEast #WestBank #Gaza
- Reposted by PolGeoNow[Not loaded yet]
- And here's our article covering what's changed for the #SchengenArea #map over the last five years, with the addition of #Croatia, #Bulgaria, and #Romania creating an uninterrupted land bridge to #Greece for the first time: www.polgeonow.com/2025/07/sche... #geography #Schengen #maps #EU #Europe
- Besides the #EU one, we've also updated our popular #SchengenArea #map and explainer - this one for the first time since 2020! Which means THREE new member countries have been added. www.polgeonow.com/2020/03/what... #geography #EuropeanUnion #Europe #Schengen #maps #cartography #mapping #travel
- We've just revised and updated our popular #EuropeanUnion #map and explainer for the first time since 2023. The biggest change is the addition of #Georgia as an official membership candidate. www.polgeonow.com/2016/06/map-... #maps #cartography #EU #Europe #geography #geopolitics #mapping
- #France says it plans to recognize #Palestine as an independent country in Sept. About 3/4 of world's countries already recognize it, but France would be the most powerful Western-aligned government do so yet. www.france24.com/en/live-news... #geography #defacto #independence #Israel #geopolitics
- UPDATE: #Seborga did release a statement yesterday on man arrested in #India for alleged scams including fraudulent claims of diplomatic privileges in the name of it and other #micronations: www.principatodiseborga.com/wp-content/u... #micronation #geography #independence #borders
- (1/4) Police in #India arrest alleged scammer running "fake embassy" claiming to represent several high-profile #micronations (timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/g...) (www.ndtv.com/india-news/g...) #micronation #independence #geography @defactoborders.bsky.social #diplomacy
- It seems misleading that news media is leading stories about #ICJ (World Court) ruling on #ClimateChange responsibility with description "non-binding". Court wasn't asked to make any orders, but actually judged that past climate treaties *are* binding in requiring action. #climate #geopolitics
- #ISO just updated its "country codes" list to spell "The Bahamas" with a capital T. www.iso.org/obp/ui/#iso:... The change comes at request of country's govt, made to #UnitedNations in April 2025: unterm.un.org/unterm2/en/v... #TheBahamas #Bahamas #toponymy #the #geography #spelling #names
- Deal reached to give #NewCaledonia new ambiguous status as "state within #France" that will be treated in some ways like an independent country - if it passes French parliament and 2026 #referendum. islandsbusiness.com/news-break/d... #Kanaky #independence #geography #Melanesia #int-rel IntLaw
- Reposted by PolGeoNow
[Not loaded yet] - Very interesting thread with some serious geographic analysis of different voting trends in what used to be West and East Germany - including some points that you may find surprising.
- When @theipaper.com blatantly plagiarized our #Israel/#Palestine control map (they apparently redrew it, but directly copied and pasted the notes and legend from ours). It's been almost a year without any response from them regarding our complaints. #plagiarism #journalism #graphics #cartography
- Last week we published a set of three in-depth #map reports covering territorial control across #Somalia's claimed territories from 2023 to present. The June 2024 report is free for all readers: www.polgeonow.com/2025/06/soma... #HornOfAfrica #cartography #maps #geography #Somaliland #humanitarian
- New example of water systems as weapon of war: #Flooding that drove #AfricanUnion's #AUSSOM forces from base in #Somalia this week allegedly engineered deliberately by #AlQaeda-affiliated #AlShabaab rebels garoweonline.com/en/news/soma... #waterconflict #hydrology @pacificinstitute.bsky.social
- UN's #WorldCourt ( #ICJ) rules that #Gabon has to give 3 tiny #islands it seized in 1972 back to #EquatorialGuinea. Having the islands implies rights to surrounding #oil rich seabed, though actual sea #borders are unsettled. www.bbc.com/news/article... #geography #sovereignty #Africa #WestAfrica
- Reports on #Somalia's new entry ban for #Taiwan passports fails to explain Taiwan's advice against citizens visiting #defacto independent #Somaliland too. Missing piece: Per #ICAO, Somaliland #airspace (but not airports, land borders) falls under #Mogadishu air traffic control. #geography #Africa
- PolGeoNow uses this tool a lot - it's valuable to make sure that sources we link to in our articles can still be accessed in the future even after the original websites take them down or move them (something that especially happens a lot with small news websites from war-torn countries).
- 🔗 Websites vanish. Links break. But knowledge can live on with your help. Use the Wayback Machine’s Save Page Now tool to archive webpages that are important to you. 🕰️ 💾 📌 Try it now: web.archive.org/save
