Map Monday: Different Ottoman Partition by Panhomo

I always have a soft spot for alternate Middle East maps and this one was good enough to feature on Map Monday:

This is "Different Ottoman Partition" by Panhomo, circa 1920. As the title suggests, this timeline features a different partition of the the defeated Ottoman Empire after WWI. Britain and France divided up the Middle East at the Euphrates River and apparently took more chunks out of Turkey than in our timeline. It reminds me a lot of the proposed borders of the Treaty of Sèvres, a treaty that was much harsher than the Treaty of Versailles and yet is rarely remembered by historians.

According to Panhomo, the base map is from the University of Texas' collection, which is one of the map databases recommended to us by Lynn Davis. With that said, Panhomo did a good job working in the changes caused by his scenario into the base map. I especially liked the inclusion of Kurdistan and I have to believe that in the present day the Kurds finally have their own state (and probably fought a Kurdistan-Iran War as well).

My one criticism is that Panhomo mentioned in his post that Russia doesn't technically exist as is shown in the map. Instead of just saying that I sort of wished he would have just shown us that by doing a few more edits, but it is a minor quibble. Many maps often don't reflect the actual realities on the ground, besides base maps updated constantly by alternate historians. So with that criticism out of the way, I can end by saying that this is a fun Middle East map to look at.

Honorable mentions this week go out to "The Republic of Greater Cascadia" by Nihht and "Causa Deus: Human Migrations to Antarctica" by Gian.

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Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update, a blogger for Amazing Stories, a volunteer interviewer for SFFWorld and a Sidewise Awards for Alternate History judge. When not exploring alternate timelines he enjoys life with his beautiful wife Alana and prepares for the day when travel between parallel universes becomes a reality. You can follow him on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, DeviantArt and YouTube. Learn how you can support his alternate history projects on Patreon.