ABSTRACT
All boundaries drawn on maps are artificial. The surface of the Earth when viewed from space has few boundaries other than those between land and water, and perhaps the starker divisions within vegetation and climate colourings. Yet the human world on the surface of the Earth is ridden with boundary lines drawn or drawable on maps. They are artificial and both culture-and society-dependent. Even those boundaries which do follow coastlines or mountain ridges are the product of people’s choices: for example, the way the boundary of the United Kingdom cuts through Ireland shows that physical geography does not simply determine how boundaries are drawn. Most boundaries are invisible to a person crossing them, yet boundaries can mean so much to people that they are fought over at scales varying from the nation state to the neighbourhoods of urban gangs.
