Map of The 1991 Gulf War
What makes this map historically fascinating is that it acts as a perfect geopolitical time capsule caught between two massive global turning points, revealing a mix of breaking news and outdated cartography.
The 1991 Gulf War
The map was distributed as a newspaper supplement by Port Elizabeth’s Eastern Province Herald on February 1, 1991.
Just two weeks prior, on January 17, 1991, the US-led coalition launched Operation Desert Storm to expel Iraqi forces from Kuwait. Because the war was dominating global headlines, newspapers rushed to print explanatory maps so readers could track daily military movements and Scud missile strikes. The detailed inset map of Kuwait in the bottom-right corner highlights exactly why this map was given away at the time.
The Cartographic Anachronism: A Divided Yemen
Because the newspaper needed to print a map quickly, they reused an older cartographic template, which created a glaring historical inaccuracy for 1991:
The map clearly labels and colours Yemen and South Yemen as two separate, independent countries.
In reality, North and South Yemen had already officially unified into a single nation on May 22, 1990—nearly a year before this newspaper was printed.
The Twilight of the Soviet Union
Note the northern borders dominated by the Russian, Kazakh, Uzbek, Turkmen, Georgian, and Azerbaijan S.S.R. (Soviet Socialist Republics).
When South African readers opened this newspaper in February 1991, the USSR was in its final, chaotic months of existence. By December 1991—less than a year later—the Soviet Union would officially dissolve, making all of those internal "S.S.R." borders international frontiers of newly independent nations.
A Snapshot of South African Corporate History
The branding at the top for "Williams Hunt Delta" represents a specific era in South African motoring. Following corporate disinvestment from South Africa during the late-apartheid era, General Motors pulled out of the country in 1986. Local management bought the operations and formed the Delta Motor Corporation, which manufactured and distributed Opel and Isuzu vehicles (as seen by the brand logos in the top right) until GM eventually bought the company back years later.
825mm x 575mm
Creased and torn in the corners.
R800
