As a long time lover of maps, this conversation was a huge treat!

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**Giovanni's audio got a little wonky a couple of times but it's all totally listenable.**

It’s easy to look at the national borders that we draw on those maps and forget how they got there—or when. One of my favorites is a globe that I got from my grandfather. It’s not that old, maybe 50 years, but there are still probably a dozen countries on it that don’t exist anymore. 

But even though those countries names no longer appear on maps, in many cases what they were continues to exist in the descendants of its citizens for decades if not hundreds of years.

Today, we’re speaking with someone who has created an incredible way to remind us that even though borders may move and names might change, all of that history is very much with us today.

Giovanni Vale is the founder of the Extinguished Countries project. The first book they’ve produced is The Republic of Venice.

Find out more about Extinguished Countries:

https://extinguishedcountries.com/

https://www.instagram.com/extinguishedcountries/

https://twitter.com/excountries

Music:

National Anthem of the Venetian Republic

Airglow - Spliff and Wesson (CC BY 4.0)

creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0

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