Iran, a rich land, a poor country (1946)

This map, published in Newsmap magazine in 1946, shows strategic information about Iran.

Newsmap was a magazine published by the United States War Department between 1942 and 1946, with the aim of providing international information to its armed forces.

On this map, Newsmap provides information about Iran after the end of the Second World War. In 1941, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union invaded Iran to prevent the country from maintaining its close ties with Germany and thus prevent the country's oil from falling into the hands of the Axis powers. At the end of the war, the United Kingdom withdrew, but the Soviet Union maintained its occupation in the north-west of the country, where it supported the declaration of independence of the People's Republic of Azerbaijan and the Republic of Kurdistan, as can be seen on the map.

But perhaps where the propaganda of the map is most evident is in the text on the right-hand side, which talks about the greatness of Iran in the time of Cyrus the Great, 2,000 years ago, and how since then the country has done nothing but decline. After discussing the country's poverty from this perspective, it goes on to talk about its great strategic value and the wealth of minerals and oil in its soil. The title of the map refers precisely to this play on words, which allows for the polysemy of land in English, used to refer to a country, as well as to a specific territory or land.

Sources

• Newsmap for the Armed Forces: Iran, rich land poor land