A border is never just one line. The map changes with the country you open it from. Each month we record which story the world leans toward — and the past is archived forever.
tap a point on the map
One dispute at a timeOrder is randomized on every visit
Bir Tawil — بئر طويل
This site's rule is that the controlling state's name leads. No state controls Bir Tawil, so the rule has nothing to work on — the name is Arabic, and Arabic is the language of both states.De facto control none — no state exercises or claims sovereignty here · 🇪🇬 Egypt is reported to control the approaches from the north · artisanal gold prospecting is reported inside
⇄ Maps, narratives and options are ordered at random on every visit
🇪🇬 Viewed from Egypt
The border is the 22nd parallel — Hala'ib inside, Bir Tawil left to Sudan
🇸🇩 Viewed from Sudan
The border is the 1902 line — Hala'ib inside, Bir Tawil left to Egypt
🌐 Viewed from anywhere else
About 2,060 km² that neither state's map places inside its own border
The maps are schematic, not surveys — the shapes are simplified. What differs between them is the naming, the administration, and where each map puts the line.
🇪🇬 Egypt — the 22nd parallel treaty line (1899)
19 January 1899
Article I of the 1899 Agreement defines "the Soudan" as "all the territories south of the 22nd parallel of latitude" — the sentence that puts Hala'ib inside Egypt and Bir Tawil outside it.
Anglo-Egyptian Agreement of 19 January 1899, Article I
1899 · 1902 · 1907
Egypt answers that Sudan's line was never a treaty — the US State Department's boundary study records it as an arrêté of the Egyptian Minister of the Interior — and that administering nomads does not move a boundary fixed between states.
Arrêté of 25 July 1902 · International Boundary Study No. 18 (1962)
1995 → today
Egypt has administered Hala'ib since 1995, and its letter to the Security Council of 26 March 2018 states that "the territory of the Sudan includes those lands that are to the south of the 22nd parallel of latitude north" — its disclaimer of Bir Tawil, put in writing without naming it.
Egypt's letter of 26 March 2018 (S/2018/270)
🇸🇩 Sudan — the 1902 line administrative line (1902)
25 July · 4 November 1902
Sudan's boundary is the administrative line of 1902, drawn — the State Department's summary of it says — "to facilitate the administration of nomadic tribes along the international boundary"; it leaves the parallel twice, north of it at Hala'ib, placed under Sudanese administration, and immediately west of that, south of it at Bir Tawil, placed under Egyptian.
The 1902 administrative boundary — arrêté of 25 July, decree of 4 November
20–21 February 1958
Prime Minister Abdulla Khalil's letter of 20 February 1958 claims the territories north of the parallel "by virtue of agreements and treaties concluded between the Egyptian Government and the Sudan Government in 1902 and 1907" — and asks for nothing south of it, then or since.
Sudan's letter of 20 February 1958 (S/3963)
5 January 2026
Sudan has written to the President of the Security Council in every January for which a letter has been retrieved, most recently on 5 January 2026, to keep the 1958 Hala'ib complaint on the Council's list — so its refusal of Bir Tawil is renewed on the same annual schedule as its claim.
Sudan's letter of 5 January 2026 (S/2026/13)
What should become of this land?
Past records are archived forever
counting — split shown once enough votes are in
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The three names run in the same order in every edition — Ukrainian, Russian, Crimean Tatar — and that order is not a ranking.De facto control 🇷🇺 Russia — since 27 February 2014, the date fixed judicially by the European Court of Human Rights · 🇺🇦 Ukraine claims Crimea and Sevastopol as temporarily occupied territory
⇄ Maps, narratives and options are ordered at random on every visit
🇷🇺 Viewed from Russia
Республика Крым · Севастополь — two federal subjects, Southern Federal District
🇺🇦 Viewed from Ukraine
Автономна Республіка Крим · Севастополь — Ukrainian territory, temporarily occupied
🌐 Viewed from anywhere else
Крим · Крым · Qırım — held by Russia, recognised as Russian by almost no one
The maps are schematic, not surveys — the shapes are simplified. What differs between them is the naming, the administration, and where each map puts the line.
Russia's story procedural nullity + self-determination
1954 · 1992 · 2014
Moscow argues the transfer was made by Presidiums with no constitutional power to move a republican border; Russia's own Supreme Soviet declared it of "no legal force" in 1992.
Russian Supreme Soviet Resolution No. 2809-1
18 March 2014
Putin invokes what he calls the Kosovo precedent, quoting the ICJ: "General international law contains no prohibition on declarations of independence."
ICJ advisory opinion on Kosovo, 22 July 2010
11 and 18 March 2014
A declaration of independence, then a treaty resting on "the free and voluntary people's will expressed in the Crimean status referendum" — presented as a treaty between two subjects of international law.
Treaty of Accession, 18 March 2014
Ukraine's story constitutional law + treaties Russia signed
1 December 1991
Crimea voted 54.19% yes for an independent Ukraine — the narrowest margin in the country — and Sevastopol 57.07%: majorities all the same.
Act of Declaration of Independence, confirmed by referendum
1996 — Articles 2, 73, 134, 157
"Issues of altering the territory of Ukraine are resolved exclusively by an All-Ukrainian referendum" — and the Constitutional Court struck down the Crimean resolution two days before the vote.
Constitution of Ukraine, Article 73
28 and 31 May 1997
Russia reaffirmed "the inviolability of the borders existing between them", then leased Crimean naval facilities from Ukraine at $97 million a year.
Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation and Partnership, Article 2
Which story do you find more convincing?
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The Court itself avoids both parties' names and writes "the territory in dispute" — this English edition leads with the neutral river name.De facto control 🇬🇾 Guyana — every part but Ankoko Island, administered as six of its ten regions · 🇻🇪 Venezuela has held Ankoko Island since October 1966 and claims the whole territory
⇄ Maps, narratives and options are ordered at random on every visit
🇬🇾 Viewed from Guyana
Six of Guyana's ten regions — national territory, no dispute label
🇻🇪 Viewed from Venezuela
Guayana Esequiba — Zona en Reclamación on older maps, an integral part of the nation since the 2024 law
🌐 Viewed from anywhere else
"The territory in dispute" — the Court's own words for the land west of the Essequibo
The maps are schematic, not surveys — the shapes are simplified. What differs between them is the naming, the administration, and where each map puts the line.
Guyana's story arbitral finality + demarcation on the ground
3 October 1899
Guyana's case is that a unanimous award made by a tribunal both states consented to is valid and binding, and its May 2026 pleading asked the Court to affirm exactly that.
Arbitral Award of 3 October 1899
1900–1905
On Guyana's account Venezuela did not merely fail to object — its own commissioners demarcated the awarded line and signed the resulting map and coordinates.
Joint boundary agreement, 1905
signed 17 February 1966
Guyana reads Article IV(2) as Venezuela's advance consent that, failing agreement on a means of settlement, the Secretary-General would choose one — and judicial settlement is among the Charter's listed means.
Geneva Agreement, Art. IV(2)
Venezuela's story nullity for fraud + settlement by agreement
1814 · 1835–1840 · 1886
Venezuela claims as successor to the Spanish Captaincy General, whose jurisdiction it says ran to the Essequibo River, and argues that Britain's frontier moved westward each time its own surveyor redrew it.
Schomburgk's sketch map, 1840
written 1944; published 1949
Venezuela treats the posthumous memorandum of its own junior counsel at the arbitration as an insider's account that the award was a political bargain rather than adjudication.
Mallet-Prevost memorandum (AJIL, 1949)
1966
Venezuela's textual case is that Britain itself signed an article naming its contention that the 1899 Award is null and void as the very controversy to be settled.
Geneva Agreement, Art. I
Which story do you find more convincing?
Past records are archived forever
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There is no neutral name — the UN's 1965 compromise leads with Falkland Islands in English and with Islas Malvinas in Spanish, so the order flips with your language edition.De facto control 🇬🇧 United Kingdom — continuously since 3 January 1833, interrupted only by the Argentine occupation of April–June 1982 · 🇦🇷 Argentina claims sovereignty
⇄ Maps, narratives and options are ordered at random on every visit
🇬🇧 Viewed from Britain
Falkland Islands — a British Overseas Territory, capital Stanley, nothing marked as disputed
🇦🇷 Viewed from Argentina
Islas Malvinas — an integral part of the national territory, Puerto Argentino in official Argentine use
🌐 Viewed from anywhere else
Falkland Islands (Malvinas) — both names in the UN's negotiated order, UK administration, sovereignty disputed
The maps are schematic, not surveys — the shapes are simplified. What differs between them is the naming, the administration, and where each map puts the line.
Britain's story earliest claim + self-determination
1765–66
Commodore John Byron claims the islands for Britain in January 1765 and Port Egmont follows the next year — which Britain treats as the earliest surviving claim of any current party.
Byron's act of possession at Port Egmont
22 January 1771
Spain restores Port Egmont after expelling its garrison, in a declaration expressly reserving "the question of the prior right of sovereignty" — which Britain reads as its own claim surviving intact.
Anglo-Spanish Declaration of 1771
10–11 March 2013
The islanders vote 1,513 to 3 on a 92% turnout, watched by a seven-nation observation mission, to remain a British Overseas Territory — an exercise of the right the UK calls paramount.
Falkland Islands sovereignty referendum
Argentina's story inherited title + territorial integrity
1816–1820
Argentina's case is that the United Provinces inherited the islands from Spain on independence under uti possidetis juris, and that Jewett's proclamation at Puerto Soledad is the successor state's first public act.
Jewett's proclamation, Puerto Soledad, 6 November 1820
standing
Argentina's standing position is that Britain's action of 3 January 1833 was an act of force in peacetime, never consented to and protested ever since — a sovereignty dispute the General Assembly has recognised since 1965.
UN General Assembly Resolution 2065 (XX)
restated 13 July 2026
Argentina holds that the present inhabitants are a "población implantada" — a population installed after 1833 — and therefore not a "people" in the sense of self-determination doctrine.
Foreign Minister Pablo Quirno
Which story do you find more convincing?
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Both states say Gibraltar, so the name-order rule has nothing to order here — only the words around the name are contested.De facto control 🇬🇧 United Kingdom — continuously since 4 August 1704, 322 years · 🇪🇸 Spain claims sovereignty
⇄ Maps, narratives and options are ordered at random on every visit
🇬🇧 Viewed from Britain and Gibraltar
The line sits at La Línea — isthmus, airport and waters all Gibraltar
🇪🇸 Viewed from Spain
The line sits at the 1713 walls — isthmus, waters and airspace all Spanish
🌐 Viewed from anywhere else
Isthmus and waters hatched, the line undrawn — one rock, three maps
The maps are schematic, not surveys — the shapes are simplified. What differs between them is the naming, the administration, and where each map puts the line.
Britain and Gibraltar's story treaty cession + self-determination
1713
Britain reads Article X as a cession of the town, castle and port in full property, "absolutely… for ever, without any exception" — reaffirmed, it says, by four later treaties.
Treaty of Utrecht, Art. X, first paragraph
1967
Offered a choice between Spanish sovereignty and the British link, Gibraltarians voted 12,138 to 44 to keep the link — 99.64% of valid votes.
Gibraltar sovereignty referendum, 10 September 1967
2002
Asked whether Britain and Spain should share sovereignty, Gibraltarians voted 187 Yes to 17,900 No, and the UK dropped the joint-sovereignty track.
Gibraltar joint-sovereignty referendum, 7 November 2002
Spain's story restrictive treaty reading + decolonisation
1713
Spain reads the same article as ceding property in enumerated works — city, castle, port, defences, fortress — expressly sin jurisdicción alguna territorial, so no territory passed.
Treaty of Utrecht, Art. X, second paragraph
1908–09
Spain says the isthmus, the adjacent waters and the airspace above were never ceded and have always remained Spanish — it protested when the fence went up and has never accepted it.
Spanish Foreign Ministry, Gibraltar policy
1964
Spain holds that Gibraltar is a colonial situation to be ended by bilateral negotiation restoring Spanish territorial integrity — the Consensus spoke of the inhabitants' interests, not their wishes.
C-24 Consensus of 1964 · Res. 1514 (XV), para. 6
Which story do you find more convincing?
Past records are archived forever
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No English name here is neutral: the plain geographic form leads, and the language of the state in effective control precedes the other — a statement about control, not about title.De facto control 🇮🇱 Israel — about two-thirds of the Golan since June 1967, its law applied there since 1981 · 🇸🇾 Syria claims it as Quneitra Governorate · Security Council Resolution 497 declared the 1981 law null and void, fifteen votes to nil; two states recognise Israeli sovereignty
⇄ Maps, narratives and options are ordered at random on every visit
🇮🇱 Viewed from Israel
רמת הגולן — the Golan Regional Council and Katzrin, in Israel's Northern District; no dispute label
🇸🇾 Viewed from Syria
هضبة الجولان — the whole plateau as Quneitra Governorate, never abolished, its nominal capital the ruined city of Quneitra
🌐 Viewed from anywhere else
Golan Heights (disputed) — no administrative attribution, and the 1974 area of separation dashed and named: a disengagement line, not a boundary either state claims
The maps are schematic, not surveys — the shapes are simplified. What differs between them is the naming, the administration, and where each map puts the line.
Israel's story prior boundary + applied law + recognition
7 March 1923
Israel's negotiating line is the Anglo-French boundary of 1923, registered with the League of Nations, which placed the entire Sea of Galilee inside Mandatory Palestine — the line Israel held to at Shepherdstown in 2000.
Paulet–Newcombe exchange of notes, LNTS No. 565
14 December 1981
The Knesset applies "the Law, jurisdiction and administration of the State" to the Golan Heights in a single day's three readings — an exercise of domestic legislative competence on Israel's account, and Begin, challenged in the House, refused the word "annexation."
The Golan Heights Law · Knesset plenum record
25 March 2019
The United States recognises Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, reasoning from security rather than from title; Colombia became the second state to do so on 10 August 2026.
Proclamation 9852 (United States)
Syria's story unbroken title + continuing injury
9–10 June 1967
Between 100,000 and about 130,000 Syrians left or were expelled as Israel took the Golan, and Syria's position is that they and their descendants retain a right of return that no passage of time extinguishes.
UN and NGO literature — no census exists
1967 – present
About 31,000 Israeli settlers live across more than thirty settlements, and Syria's argument is that each is barred by Article 49(6) of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which Resolution 497 confirmed continues to apply to the Golan.
Fourth Geneva Convention, Art. 49(6)
1974 – present
Syria has never abolished Quneitra Governorate, administering it from a provisional seat at Madinat al-Baath, and its position is that the Israeli presence is belligerent occupation which cannot ripen into title however long it lasts.
UN General Assembly item, "The occupied Syrian Golan"
Which story do you find more convincing?
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Three parties, and no one name covers every part — this page says Indian-administered and Pakistan-administered Kashmir after OHCHR, the BBC and Reuters, attributes each government's own term to that government, and does not pretend the choice is costless: India rejects the formulation.De facto control divided three ways since 1963 · 🇮🇳 India about 55% — Jammu, the Valley, most of Ladakh, Siachen — and about 70% of the people · 🇵🇰 Pakistan about 30% — Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Gilgit-Baltistan · 🇨🇳 China about 15% — Aksai Chin, the Trans-Karakoram Tract
⇄ Maps, narratives and options are ordered at random on every visit
🇮🇳 Viewed from India
Survey of India — the whole former princely state as Indian, Aksai Chin included
🇵🇰 Viewed from Pakistan
The whole state disputed territory — final status left to a plebiscite
🇨🇳 Viewed from China
Aksai Chin drawn as Xinjiang and Tibet, the Trans-Karakoram Tract as Xinjiang — the rest, India and Pakistan's affair
🌐 Viewed from anywhere else
Lines of control, dashed — three administrations, no agreed border
The maps are schematic, not surveys — the shapes are simplified. What differs between them is the naming, the administration, and where each map puts the line.
India's story completed accession + domestic constitutional law
1947
Maharaja Hari Singh executes the same standard Instrument as some 560 other princely rulers, and India's case is that the Governor-General's acceptance — which carries no condition — completed the transfer.
Instrument of Accession, accepted 27 October 1947
1994
Both Houses resolve, in substance, that Jammu and Kashmir is an integral part of India and that Pakistan must vacate the areas it holds — India's claim runs to the whole region, not to the part it administers.
Parliamentary resolution of 22 February 1994
2023
India's Supreme Court upholds the 2019 measures unanimously and, in the same judgment, directs that statehood be restored as soon as possible — it has not been restored.
Supreme Court of India, judgment of 11 December 2023
Pakistan's story unresolved disposition + a promised plebiscite
1948
Pakistan's Foreign Ministry holds that the Security Council resolutions leave the final disposition of the state to the will of its people, expressed in a free and impartial plebiscite under United Nations auspices.
Security Council Resolution 47 · UNCIP Resolution of 13 August 1948
1947–48
Pakistan's argument is that India applied two incompatible tests in a single year — demanding the people's will in Junagadh, whose Muslim ruler had acceded to Pakistan, while treating the ruler's signature as conclusive in Kashmir.
The Junagadh accession and the plebiscite of 1948
2020
Pakistan and a body of scholarship read the domicile rules made after Article 35A's removal as engineered demographic change in the territory any plebiscite would measure.
Grant of Domicile Certificate (Procedure) Rules, 2020
China's story Qing-era frontier + bilateral boundary question
1899 · 1956–57
Zhou Enlai's position is that the western border had never been delimited and that the Macartney–MacDonald line — on China's account the only line ever proposed to a Chinese government — left Aksai Chin on the Chinese side, where the Xinjiang–Tibet highway was built in 1956–57.
The Macartney–MacDonald line of 1899
1963
Chen Yi and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto sign a boundary agreement placing about 5,180–5,200 km² of the Trans-Karakoram Tract under Chinese administration, with Article 6 providing for renegotiation with the sovereign authority once the Kashmir dispute is settled.
Sino-Pakistan Boundary Agreement, Art. 6
2019 · 2023
Beijing's standing formula calls Kashmir an issue left over from history between India and Pakistan, while holding separately that the western section of the China–India boundary belongs to China.
Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, standing formulation
Which story do you find more convincing?
Past records are archived forever
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Why people voted
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Vote first — this is where a vote gets its reason.
Name order follows your language edition — each side's name leads in its own language.De facto control 🇰🇷 South Korea — police garrison since 1954 · 🇯🇵 Japan claims sovereignty
⇄ Maps, narratives and options are ordered at random on every visit
🇰🇷 Viewed from Korea
Dokdo — Korean territory, no dispute label
🇯🇵 Viewed from Japan
竹島 Takeshima — shown as inherent Japanese territory
🌐 Viewed from anywhere else
Nameless rocks in a dashed circle — one island, three maps The sea is written with both names, joined and equal, in English alphabetical order — an order, not a ranking.
The maps are schematic, not surveys — the shapes are simplified. What differs between them is the naming, the administration, and where each map puts the line.
Korea's story historic title + de facto control
512
Silla's general Isabu subjugates Usan-guk — the start of recorded governance over Ulleungdo and its islets.
Samguk Sagi, Annals of Silla
1877
Japan's highest state organ officially directs that "Ulleungdo and the other island are unrelated to Japan."
Dajōkan Directive (太政官指令)
1900
The Korean Empire's Imperial Edict places Seokdo (Dokdo) under Uldo County — five years before Japan's 1905 incorporation.
Imperial Edict No. 41
Japan's story international law + postwar treaty
1905
Shimane Prefecture incorporates Takeshima — presented as lawful occupation of terra nullius under modern international law.
Shimane Prefecture Notice No. 40
1951
The San Francisco Peace Treaty's list of territories Japan renounces does not mention the island.
Treaty of Peace, Art. 2
1954~
Japan proposes referral to the International Court of Justice three times — Korea declines, saying no dispute exists.
Notes verbales, MOFA Japan
Which story do you find more convincing?
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Three parties, and no neutral noun on this island: for the north this edition uses the EU's Protocol 10 wording — areas of the Republic of Cyprus in which the Government of the Republic of Cyprus does not exercise effective control — which is legally exact within EU law and still not neutral to everyone, because its premise — that these are areas of the Republic at all — is precisely what the Turkish and Turkish Cypriot sides reject; and it doubles place names, because the doubling is itself the fact.De facto control the line was drawn in August 1974 and has not moved since; the Turkish Cypriot authorities administer the north — 3,355 km², about 36.3% of the island — and declared statehood there in 1983; 🇹🇷 Türkiye alone recognises it, and Security Council Resolution 541 called the declaration legally invalid · 🇨🇾 the Republic of Cyprus holds about 57% and is recognised by every other state as the government of the whole island · in Loizidou (1996) the European Court of Human Rights held that Türkiye's army exercises "effective overall control" over the north and is answerable for the northern administration's acts
⇄ Maps, narratives and options are ordered at random on every visit
🇨🇾 Viewed from the Republic of Cyprus
One state, the whole island, lettered in Greek — Λευκωσία, Κερύνεια, Αμμόχωστος — and the north carries the Republic's own designation for it, κατεχόμενα, the occupied areas of the Republic of Cyprus
Viewed from the north
The same island lettered in Turkish — Lefkoşa, Girne, Gazimağusa — with the north under the name its own authorities gave it in 1983, Kuzey Kıbrıs Türk Cumhuriyeti, and the south under the name they use for it, Güney Kıbrıs Rum Yönetimi
🇹🇷 Viewed from Türkiye
The same Turkish names again, and the sameness is itself the fact — what only Ankara's map adds is the north marked as the one Cypriot state Türkiye recognises, and its own force stationed there, the Cyprus Turkish Peace Force Command
🌐 Viewed from anywhere else
No party's language: Cyprus in Latin lettering, the line dashed and named as the United Nations names it, the buffer zone, and the north given the EU's Protocol 10 wording — areas in which the Government of the Republic of Cyprus does not exercise effective control
The maps are schematic, not surveys — the shapes are simplified. What differs between them is the naming, the administration, and where each map puts the line.
The Republic's story a wrong never remedied + non-recognition
16 August 1974
The Security Council recorded its "formal disapproval of the unilateral military actions undertaken against the Republic of Cyprus" and said the outcome should not be prejudged "by the acquisition of advantages resulting from military operations" — on the Republic's reading, nothing taken in 1974 can ripen into title.
UN Security Council Resolution 360, paras 1 and 3
12 February 1977 · 19 May 1979
Makarios and Denktaş agreed that Cyprus would be "an independent, non-aligned, bicommunal, federal republic," which the Republic offers as proof that federation is not a Greek Cypriot preference imposed on the other side but the basis the Turkish Cypriot leader himself signed.
High-Level Agreements, first guideline (1977)
1974 · 1984 · 2020
Varosha / Maraş has been fenced and closed to its inhabitants for fifty-two years, and the Republic points to the Security Council resolution that names it, holding attempts to settle any part of it by people other than its inhabitants "inadmissible" and calling for its transfer to United Nations administration.
UN Security Council Resolution 550, para 5
The Turkish Cypriots' story dissolved partnership + self-determination
10 September 1964
The UN Secretary-General reported that the economic restrictions imposed on the Turkish Cypriot communities were "in some instances… so severe as to amount to veritable siege," which Turkish Cypriots cite to show the dispute did not begin in 1974 but in the eleven years they spent in enclaves before it.
S/5950, Secretary-General's report on UNFICYP, para 223
15 November 1983
The Turkish Cypriot legislature declared what it named the "Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus," its case being that the 1960 Republic was a partnership of two peoples rather than a state with a minority, so that when one partner took the machinery in 1963 what survived was two peoples each entitled to self-determination.
Declaration of 15 November 1983, Turkish Cypriot legislature
19 October 2025
Turkish Cypriot voters removed Ersin Tatar, the leader most identified with the two-state proposal, electing Tufan Erhürman 62.76% to 35.81% against a candidate Erdoğan had openly backed — which Turkish Cypriots offer as their answer to being described as Ankara's proxy.
Turkish Cypriot leadership election, 19 October 2025
Türkiye's story treaty right + guarantor obligation
16 August 1960
Article IV of the Treaty of Guarantee, which Cyprus itself signed, reserves to each guaranteeing Power "the right to take action with the sole aim of re-establishing the state of affairs created by the present Treaty," and Türkiye's foreign ministry states that it "intervened as a Guarantor Power on 20 July 1974 in conformity with its rights and obligations."
Treaty of Guarantee, Art. IV (UNTS vol. 382, No. 5475)
30 July – 16 August 1974
Türkiye's case for the August advance is that the "state of affairs created by the Treaty" was the bicommunal partnership rather than a president in Nicosia, that the partnership had been dead since 1963 and could not be restored in forty-eight hours, and that the Geneva Declaration of 30 July had already spoken of "two autonomous administrations."
Geneva Declaration, 30 July 1974
July 2021 – 2026
After the collapse of the Crans-Montana talks in 2017 Türkiye left the federal framework, and President Erdoğan stated in July 2021 that talks can resume only on a two-state basis — a position Ankara has not retracted, including after the Turkish Cypriot election of October 2025.
President Erdoğan, statement of July 2021
Which story do you find more convincing?
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Name order follows the Congressional Research Service, which titles its report with all three names; each language edition leads with the name used where it is read. There is no neutral name here — and this dispute has three parties, not two.De facto control 🇯🇵 Japan — Ishigaki City, Okinawa Prefecture, since the reversion of Okinawa on 15 May 1972 · 🇨🇳 China and 🇹🇼 Taiwan each claim sovereignty — separately, by Taipei's own rule
⇄ Maps, narratives and options are ordered at random on every visit
🇯🇵 Viewed from Japan
尖閣諸島 — Ishigaki City, Okinawa Prefecture, in the district renamed 登野城尖閣 in 2020; nothing marked as disputed, because Japan says there is no dispute
🇨🇳 Viewed from China
钓鱼岛及其附属岛屿 — affiliated to Taiwan Island, inside the territorial-sea baselines declared on 10 September 2012
🇹🇼 Viewed from Taiwan
釣魚臺列嶼 — Daxi Village, Toucheng Township, Yilan County: a different name and a different designation from Beijing's
🌐 Viewed from anywhere else
Uninhabited rocks in a dashed outline, all three names printed — the arrangement the Congressional Research Service uses, because no cartographic settlement exists
The maps are schematic, not surveys — the shapes are simplified. What differs between them is the naming, the administration, and where each map puts the line.
Japan's story 1895 incorporation + acquiescence
14 January 1895
The cabinet resolves that the islands are under Okinawa Prefecture's jurisdiction and permits markers to be erected — an act Japan dates three months before the Treaty of Shimonoseki and holds to be legally severable from it, and which Japan concedes was not made public.
Cabinet Decision of 14 January 1895, National Archives of Japan
1896 – c. 1940
The Meiji government approves a marine-products merchant's lease of four state-owned islands, and the settlement that follows — 248 residents in 99 households by 1908, taxed by Japan — is what Japan offers as its continuous display of state authority.
Meiji Government lease approval to Koga Tatsushirō, 1896
8 January 1953
Japan's most cited Chinese-origin item: the Chinese Communist Party's own newspaper lists "the Senkaku Islands" among the seven groups making up the Ryukyus, and MOFA's case is that China "has not explained at all why it did not object."
People's Daily, 琉球群島人民反對美國佔領的鬥爭
China's story prior title + postwar restitution
1534 · 1561–62
Ming envoy accounts pass "Diaoyu Yu… Huangmao Yu… Chi Yu" on the route to Ryukyu and record Kume Island as the point "which belongs to Ryukyu" — texts China reads as placing the frontier east of the islands.
Chen Kan, 使琉球錄, and Guo Rulin, 1561
1885–1894
China builds from Japan's own files: Inoue advises against markers because they are "bound to alert the Qing imperial court," an Okinawa survey reports in May 1894 "no old records" attaching the island to Japan, and the Home Minister writes that "circumstances have now changed" after Lushun falls.
Inoue Kaoru's letter of 21 October 1885 and the Japanese archival record, cited in the 2012 white paper
30 December 1971
China's foreign ministry states that the boundary with Ryukyu lies between Chiwei Yu and Kume Island, that the islands are "appurtenances of Taiwan," and that placing them in the Okinawa reversion was "wholly illegal" — a position codified in the Territorial Sea Law of 25 February 1992.
PRC Foreign Ministry statement · Law on the Territorial Sea and the Contiguous Zone
Taiwan's story prescription + cession with Taiwan
1895
ROC MOFA's case is that the islands "were part of Qing territory before 1895 and were not terra nullius," so that when Taiwan was ceded they were ceded with it — a question of occupation and prescription rather than of discovery.
Treaty of Shimonoseki, Art. 2 — ROC MOFA's reading
11 June 1971
The Republic of China states its formal claim six months before the PRC's statement of 30 December, Taipei's position being that its case has run on its own timetable rather than in Beijing's wake.
ROC MOFA chronicle of the dispute
1996
Taipei adopts four principles for handling the dispute, the third of them not to "collaborate with the PRC to resolve the issues" — and the administrative record follows, the islands sitting in Yilan County on Taipei's designation and "affiliated to Taiwan Island" on Beijing's.
The four principles of 1996, as published by ROC MOFA
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Name order follows your language edition — this English one leads with the form reference works use, which is also the English of Russia's name. There is no neutral name here.De facto control 🇷🇺 Russia — since 1945, today administered as two Sakhalin Oblast districts · 🇯🇵 Japan claims sovereignty
⇄ Maps, narratives and options are ordered at random on every visit
🇷🇺 Viewed from Russia
Южные Курилы — Kurilsky and Yuzhno-Kurilsky urban districts, Sakhalin Oblast
🇯🇵 Viewed from Japan
北方領土 — the four islands, on Japan's standing formulation "inherent territory… currently under the control of Russia"
🌐 Viewed from anywhere else
The same rocks in a dashed outline — inside the Kuril chain on Russia's name for them, outside it on Japan's
The maps are schematic, not surveys — the shapes are simplified. What differs between them is the naming, the administration, and where each map puts the line.
Russia's story wartime settlement + treaty renunciation
11 February 1945
Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill agree that "the Kurile Islands shall be handed over to the Soviet Union" — the price of Soviet entry into the Pacific war, with no island named individually.
Yalta Agreement
29 January / 2 February 1946
The Allied occupation authority defines Japan so as to exclude the Kurils by name, and Habomai and Shikotan with them — the two Japan says were never Kurils at all.
SCAPIN 677
8 September 1951
Japan renounces "all right, title and claim to the Kurile Islands" naming no exception — and six weeks later Japan's own Treaties Bureau chief tells the Diet that the term covered Kunashiri and Etorofu.
Treaty of Peace, Art. 2(c)
Japan's story treaty border + occupation legality
7 February 1855
The first Russo-Japanese border, drawn in peacetime, runs between Iturup and Urup — placing all four islands on the Japanese side, and, on Japan's case, making them territory no foreign country had ever held.
Treaty of Shimoda, Art. 2
7 May 1875
The treaty lists the eighteen islands Russia cedes — Shumshu down to Urup, and no further — which Japan reads as the parties' own definition of what "the Kuril Islands" comprised.
Treaty of St Petersburg
April – September 1945
The Kuril landings begin on 18 August, after Japan's capitulation broadcast, and the Habomai islets fall on 4 September — two days after the Instrument of Surrender was signed, and after Moscow had told Tokyo the Neutrality Pact would run a further twelve months.
Cabinet Office chronology, hoppou.go.jp
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Western Sahara — الصحراء الغربية — Sáhara Occidental
The name is itself a claim here — this page uses the United Nations' term, and each party's own designations appear only quoted and attributed.De facto control 🇲🇦 Morocco administers most of the territory — the populated coastal strip west of the berm, with Laayoune, Dakhla and the Bou Craa mine · 🏳️ the area east of the berm is held by the Polisario Front · the split is contested, commonly given as 80/20 · a Non-Self-Governing Territory on the UN list since 1963, with no administering power
⇄ Maps, narratives and options are ordered at random on every visit
🇲🇦 Viewed from Morocco
الأقاليم الجنوبية — the Southern Provinces, Morocco's own administrative name for the territory; nothing marked as disputed
🏳️ Viewed from Polisario and the SADR
الجمهورية العربية الصحراوية الديمقراطية — the whole territory drawn as one state, proclaimed at Bir Lehlou in 1976
🌐 Viewed from anywhere else
Western Sahara — a Non-Self-Governing Territory since 1963, cut in two by 2,700 km of berm
The maps are schematic, not surveys — the shapes are simplified. What differs between them is the naming, the administration, and where each map puts the line.
Morocco's story pre-colonial ties + autonomy on offer
16 October 1975
The International Court of Justice recorded legal ties of allegiance between the Sultan of Morocco and some of the tribes living in the territory at the time of Spanish colonisation.
ICJ Advisory Opinion, 16 October 1975
11 April 2007 — S/2007/206
Morocco offers an autonomous Region whose statute would be put to the population in a free referendum, which the plan itself describes as their exercise of self-determination.
Moroccan Autonomy Initiative, paragraph 27
31 October 2025
The Security Council called on the parties to negotiate "taking as basis Morocco's Autonomy Proposal", and the word referendum appears nowhere in the resolution.
UN Security Council Resolution 2797
Polisario and the SADR's story unfinished decolonisation + no sovereignty tie
16 October 1975
The same Court found no tie of territorial sovereignty between the territory and Morocco, and none of a nature that might affect the application of Resolution 1514 or of self-determination.
ICJ Advisory Opinion, 16 October 1975
29 January 2002 — S/2002/161
The UN Legal Counsel advised that the 1975 Madrid Agreement transferred no sovereignty and conferred the status of administering power on nobody.
UN Legal Counsel opinion to the Security Council, paragraph 6
1988 · 1991 · 2004
Both parties accepted a plan for a referendum between independence and integration with Morocco, and MINURSO's own background page says it has never been held.
Settlement Plan, endorsed by Resolutions 658 (1990) and 690 (1991)
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