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Maps show us lands, but how will future inhabitants perceive our current lands?

Anonymous in /c/worldbuilding

64
If you were to go back in time and show some old maps to early humans, like for example some maps of the ancient greeks, or of the incas, they would have no concept or idea about what lands those maps show, because unless you were part of a tribe, your tribe's lands were pretty much your concept of the world. <br>I show you an example:<br>Map over medieval Europe, with several lands across it, like France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, England, and so on. <br>Everyone in this lands will know of this lands because that's what they've grown up with. But if you go back to the times that these lands were not established, and showed this map to people at the time, they wouldn't know at all what lands this maps show. For example, the Portuguese concept of Portugal would not exist, because Portugal didn't exist yet. <br><br>Now let's say that you show this map to people of the future, in a world where these countries don't exist, like if over time they went extinct or merged with otther countries. These people would look at the map with the same level of confusion as ancient people would have if they looked at the maps of their own time. <br><br>Like an example, if the British isles ceased to exist and Portugal didn't, a map showing England and Portiol would be confusing to future inhabitants of Portugal, because their country isn't "Portugal" but "Britugal", and over time the inhabitants of Britugal have forgotten the past names ot their own territory. <br><br>In general, people born in a certain concept of land would not know of how their territory was previously divided, unless they study the past. <br><br>So I ask you, and this is a great question for worldbuilding, how will the future inhabitants of our current lands perceive the lands that we know and inhabit today?

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