The Dutch historical maps showed differences across the border through reducing the amount of colours in the foreign country (a decision by the map maker) as well as through showing the railway line stopped existing in the Netherlands prior to being eliminated on the German side of the border. This shows a clear disjuncture: differences of representation between the own and the foreign state and difference in construction on both sides of the border, even when it comes to the same project (a railway line).
The disjuncture in representation on maps continues even to the present day. Recent national or regional maps may continue across the border, but older maps or specialised maps end at the border32. This problem originates at the different programs used to map land by the cadastre of respectively the Netherlands or Germany: each country uses its own products, which are not compatible with the other. Some organisations such as Euregio make an effort to create custom made maps that cover the complete border region (see example in annex), this however takes a lot of time and money, which is not always available for internationalisation purposes. This observation of the network of maps leads to the schematic as can be seen in figure 18. In this figure the two different colours represent the two different networks (i.e. programs), thus the two different countries. One can see that the networks do seem to cross the border, which is represented by the black line. The networks however only cross the border for a short distance, and then don't connect with the other network. This means map programs cross the border, but they remain part of the network of one country. And although one can thus see a part of the other country, the border does affect the network as a barrier. This can also be seen when looking at the roads that end at the border on the map.
The roads shown on the historical maps show changes in numbers throughout time. One can see that since the start of mapmaking by the Dutch cadastre there has been a changing amount of border-crossing roads. The amount of roads also depended on the scale of the map. A trend can be found when looking at maps from the 1950s onwards. At this time one can assume that map making was already detailed enough to show a continuous amount of roads, nevertheless the amount of roads on the micro map decreases from 7 in 1940 to only 2 in 2011. On the nano map one can also see that even on this small piece of land the amount of roads has decreased from 4 to 1, as can be seen in figure 19. In this figure one can see the development of the amount of border-crossing roads over time. The nano map shows less border crossings than the micro map, which is not unexpected since the nano map also shows a smaller surface than the micro map. One can see that over time the amount of border crossings on the micro maps first developed from few to many, and
32 This is also for a large part the case for Google Streetview, although it has a different origin from nano maps. Google Streetview is available in the Netherlands, but only in a few parts in Germany. This is because several years ago Google lost a court case, preventing it from creating new pictures without the agreement of (owners of) what or who was on the picture. After this Google decided to stop mapping its Streetview in Germany.
Figure 18: Systematic representation of maps
then back to only two. On the nano maps one can see that the maps displayed three border crossings, which became less over the years.
The development of roads shows the development of disjunctures between the Dutch and the German side of the cross-border region. The more roads connected across the border, the less disjunctures existed. This thus also shows that from the early 20th century until the 1940s there was an increase in connections. From the 1950s onwards one can see a trend in decreasing the amount of border crossings. This trend was shortly reversed after the 1970s. In 2011 however only 2 border crossings were shown on the micro map. This can be the result of correcting a prior update (as in some cases it could be seen on the maps that they did not show a true resemblance of the Witte Veen33), but it can also show a new trend of rebordering. This rebordering trend is also explained by the local managers of nature and tourism explaining there is no demand for small border-crossing roads, and that it is more profitable for tourism and nature to close these roads for motorised vehicles at the border.
It can thus be said that a disjuncture between different map networks exists, leading to different programs creating maps on both sides of the border. Furthermore a disjuncture exists between roads at the border. Historically it can be seen that both trends of debordering and rebordering have been observed in the road networks. At the moment the trend seems to again reborder and thus increase the barrier at the national border. This disjuncture in road networks is further explained in the next section.
33 This was e.g. the case for the maps of 2010 (nano) and 2011 (nano); one can see that the Witte Venn (D) was more developed on the map of 2010 than on the map of 2011, this is not a true resemblance of the development of the area.