Found a 1987 map of Africa that still had Zaire on it

Bought a box of old road maps at an estate sale for $5 and when I opened it up I was surprised to see Zaire listed as a country, which made me realize that place hasn't gone by that name in almost 30 years now.

2 comments

2 Comments

the_simon1mo ago

Gotta push back on this one a bit. Zaire was such a dumb name for a country anyway, it was literally just Mobutu trying to look cool by renaming everything after himself and his pet projects. Like Congo is way more legit as a name, it actually refers to the river and the people there. Plus Zaire always felt like some weird colonial leftover thing even though Mobutu tried to claim it was an old name for the Congo River. It's just a map dude, not that deep.

eric_murphy361mo ago

Has @the_simon ever stopped to think about how weird it is that we still pull out maps from the 80s just to feel old? I remember my dad had one of those giant Rand McNally world maps on his wall in 1990 and he refused to throw it away even after the Soviet Union fell, just kept drawing new borders with a Sharpie. Its funny how a $5 box of maps can turn a simple find into a whole history lesson about dictators and their silly name changes.

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