File talk:Emancipation Proclamation.PNG

Misleading background map

While I appreciate the effort in producing this, I think it could be improved by more accurately representing the situation with the states on January 1, 1863. For example, West Virginia was not admitted to the U.S. until June 20, 1863, and so it should not be shown as a separate state, though its cyan/red division probably exactly follows the modern state line (right?). Certainly the states Nevada, Nebraska, and so on had not been admitted. Probably the county lines in the western states were also not in existence yet either; the only one I know of offhand is Oregon, it it has much less than 36 counties at the time. Maybe as few as six. EncMstr (talk) 05:04, 8 November 2016 (UTC)

Also Jefferson County, West Virginia, is shown in red. I don't know whether that means that one county of West Virginia was still in rebellion on January 1, 1863, or whether it's simply an error in the map. —Mahāgaja · talk 19:06, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

Another issue is the map uses current county lines instead of the historical counties of the time. --Washuotaku (talk) 19:30, 30 September 2021 (UTC)