Allegorical, satirical, and comic or serio-comic maps were one of the most popular ways of distributing political propaganda leading up to the Second World War. With countries depicted as human figures, animals, or even monsters, these maps attempted to represent more than just geography—and in doing so, exposed the political biases and sometimes even bigotry of the author.
Nowadays, it's strange to see states and people caricatured using cartography according to current political and international circumstances—especially in such a sarcastic, even disobliging way. The following collection of maps will give you an idea about how these artists used geographic as a form of propaganda, sometimes to disturbing ends.
1570: Map of Europe in the shape of a queen.
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Allegorical map of the Baltic Sea in the form of Charon, the ferryman of Hades, 1701.
Source: National Library of Sweden
America as the land of plenty, 1782.
Source: Library of Congress
Britannia, hand-colored and engraved caricature map of Britain in the guise of an old woman seated on a sea creature, 1791.
Source: Bonhmas
Comic map of the seat of war, 1854.
Source: Bibliothèque nationale de France
European states, 1864.
Source: National Library of Sweden
Europe's comic map dedicated to the youth, 1867.
Source: Map-Fair
The Porcineograph, 1876, a map of the United States in the shape of a pig, surrounded by pigs representing the different states, with notations of state foods.
Source: Library of Congress
Serio-comic war map for the year 1877.
Source: Library of Congress
Animal Europe: comic physiology of Europe, 1882.
Source: Bibliotheek van de Universiteit van Amsterdam
Map of Europe in 1887.
Source: Library of Congress
1888: Illustrated political chart of American politics and the Tapeworm Party, showing James G. Blaine as the head of a tapeworm made up of various government scandals over a map of the United States.
Source: Library of Congress
Angling in troubled waters, a serio-comic map of Europe, 1899
Source: National Library of Sweden
Japanese allegorical map representing the Far East, c1900.
Source: Bibliothèque nationale de France
John Bull and his friends: a serio-comic map of Europe, 1900
Source: Centre Excursionista de Catalunya
Map of Europe at the outbreak of the first World War, 1914
Source: Library of Congress
Hark! Hark! The dogs do bark! 1914
Source: National Library of Sweden
Warmonger Prussia as an octopus whose tentacles are reaching into Europe, 1914
Source: Library of Congress
The Great European War, from A Humorous Atlas of the World (Japan 1914).
Source: Wikimedia Commons
And two bonus map in order to resolve the tension:
Human map of the U.S.A., c1925.
Source: Library of Congress
A map of the fortified country of man’s heart.
Source: Glamour magazine, 1948. april.