Mapping the last
30 years in numbers
Even maps have changed since 1993, with new routes, trails and borders transforming the way we see the world – and breaking records along the way
NEWLY RECOGNISED COUNTRIES
There have been countless breakaway states over the past 30 years, but only nine internationally recognised countries have emerged since 1993, when the Velvet Divorce saw former Czechoslovakia break into Slovakia and what is now Czechia (formerly Czech Republic). This was followed by Eritrea, which split from Ethiopia in the same year, although like Timor-Leste (2002) and South Sudan (2011), its path hasn’t been easy. The Republic of Palau, a collection of 200 limestone and volcanic islands in the Western Pacific, left US administration behind in 1994, becoming a diving hotspot that lures travellers with the prospect of swimming past millions of stingless jellyfish. And the break-up of old Yugoslavia continued well into the 2000s, with Kosovo (2008) and the ever-popular Montenegro (2006) belatedly separating from Serbia.
A NEW CAPITAL FOUR TIMES
THE SIZE OF GREATER LONDON
Countries change capital city all the time, usually for political or logistical reasons, but they seem to be getting more ambitious. Egypt is moving its as-yet-unnamed administrative capital (714 sq km) 50km south-east of Cairo to alleviate pressure on its ancient centre, and in 2024, Indonesian capital Jakarta is set to give way to newly built Nusantara (2,560 sq km) on the east coast of Borneo. Indeed, Asia is at the centre of this trend, with South Korea’s purpose-built Sejong City (462 sq km) and the Philippines’ New Clark City (94 sq km) mooted to displace Seoul and Manila respectively by 2030. Yet none can match Myanmar’s gigantic Naypyidaw for sheer scale (7,054 sq km), at four times the size of London yet with barely a tenth of its population.
THE MOST REMOTE NEW
COMMERCIAL AIRPORT
The UK’s most distant outpost, St Helena, finally got its first airport in 2016, opening up an island so remote that Napoleon was exiled there to die by the British. At 1,950km from south-western Africa (and 8,466km from London), it is surely the most remote location to get regular commercial flights in the last 30 years. Until then, visitors had to travel five days on the RMS St Helena mail ship from Cape Town, which ran every three weeks, to get there. Elsewhere, China opened the world’s highest airport in 2013, with travellers now able to fly to Daocheng Yading (4,411m above sea level) in the mountainous west of Sichuan Province. It’s a gateway to Shangri-La, which officially changed its name to that of the mythical city in James Hilton’s book Lost Horizon in 2001.
NAME CHANGES
Names are a powerful thing, particularly in countries like New Zealand and Australia, where the dual titling of places and cities is helping to restore their Indigenous identities. Throwing off the legacy of colonialism is a common reason, as in eSwatini (formerly Swaziland), renamed in 2018 by its king in a bid to not only break away from its past but also, so he claimed at the time, to stop people confusing it with Switzerland. Others are more diplomatically inspired, with North Macedonia (previously the Former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia) adopting its current name in 2018 after a 15-year standoff with Greece over the use of ‘Macedonia’. But the record breaker is Kazakhstan capital Astana, which has changed name three times since 1998, morphing from Akmola to Astana, then Nir-Sultan in 2019, only to change back this year.
NEW ARCTIC EXPLORERS
The infamous Northwest Passage, between the Canadian Arctic (north of Baffin Island) and the Bering Sea, was a pipe dream for sailors for decades. It was first completed in 1906 by Roald Amundsen, but remained thereafter a daunting prospect. A safe, direct route between the Atlantic and Pacific promised untold riches for those who could find it; no one ever did until relatively recently. These days it’s far easier. Since 2000, the Arctic climate has changed so much that the waters are all but ice-free in late summer. It’s a worrying trend, but it has also opened up the possibility for expedition cruises to follow in the wake of history’s greatest explorers by taking on the much-fabled route that traces the northern coast of North America, and which has only been possible to navigate without an icebreaker since 2007. Indeed, up until 1993, only 46 ships had ever made this 1,450km journey; since then, some 348 have attempted it, say records by the Scott Polar Institute.
THE PLANET’S BIGGEST PARK
Countless national parks have appeared over the last 30 years, with the largest to emerge in the USA being Death Valley (13,650 sq km), which gained its status in 1994. Later, China opened the world’s highest national park, Sanjiangyuan, in 2020, which also spans 123,000 sq km (more than 13 times the size of Yellowstone). Perhaps most remarkable of all is the story of Chile’s Pumalín Douglas Tompkins NP, which began life as the largest private conservation project in the world, backed by Kris and the late Doug Tompkins, before it was given to the state in 2018 to become a national park. But when it comes to size, all of the above could squeeze within the world's largest marine park, Marae Moana, and still leave space for a country or two. This protected area was created around the South Pacific’s Cook Islands in 2017 and spans a massive 1.9 million sq km.
THE LONGEST WALK IN THE WORLD
Ever longer trails have been created over the past 30 years, with the most iconic arguably being North America’s 4,265km Pacific Crest Trail (PCT), between California and British Columbia, which was only finalised in 1993. Though this was blown out of the water in 2017, when the world’s longest trail, The Great Trail in Canada (27,000km), was officially declared complete. In Europe, routes such as the Transcaucasian Trail (TCT), which was only finished recently and threads the Caucasus Mountains from Georgia to Armenia for around 3,000km, followed in the footsteps of their US forebears. Meanwhile, the Jordan Trail (675km) gets special mention for becoming the first long-distance hiking trail in the Middle East in 2015, followed shortly after by North Africa’s first, the Sinai Trail (550km), which crosses the territories of eight Bedouin peoples in Egypt. Even tiny England has got in on the epic trails act with the England Coast Path (4,499km), although work on this is still ongoing.
AFRICA’S LARGEST NEW MASS MIGRATION
Over in Botswana, the erection of fences by ranchers in the late 20th century disrupted traditional animal migration patterns across the country, but by the mid-2000s, it was discovered that 30,000 zebra were now crossing the Kalahari Desert to spend the dry season (Apr–Oct) in the Okavango, only returning to Makgadikgadi Salt Pans in January in what has become one of the continent’s newest large land migrations. It’s not the only new arrival in travel, and discoveries come in every shape and size, with Peru’s colourful Rainbow Mountain, near Cusco, becoming an Instagram hit with travellers after it first appeared between 2012 and 2015 from beneath melting snow. And in Egypt, there’s always something new to discover, but February 2023 saw the opening to the public for the first time of the oldest site on Luxor’s West Bank, the Middle Kingdom Tomb of Meru, which has us very excited indeed.
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