Insularity, sovereignty and statehood: the representation of islands on portolan charts and the construction of the territorial state

Abstract

This article investigates the cartographic origins of the idea that the territorial state is a unified, bounded, homogeneous and naturally occurring entity, in a world of equivalent but unique entities. It is noted that this image of the territorial state closely resembles the representation of islands on sixteenth‐century portolan charts, and this suggests a historical link between the Renaissance‐era imagination of islands and the modern imagination of states. The article posits that the concept of territorial unity and boundedness, which appeared on portolan charts to signify islands as obstacles amidst maritime routes of movement, migrated in the late sixteenth‐century to form the basis for representing the emergent concept of the territorial state. It is suggested that the conceptual and aesthetic links between these representations of islands and states has led to an ongoing dilemma for those who seek to comprehend (or cartographically represent) islands that are divided between multiple states.

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