India and Burma / compiled and drawn in the Cartographic Section of the National Geographic Society for the National Geographic Magazine

April 1946

Colour lithograph on paper

Folds down to 6.25 x 7.5 in (16 x 19.5 cm), opens to 25 x 30 in (63.5 x 76.5 cm), with key, in English.

Mapping the Subcontinent on the Eve of Partition—India and Burma, National Geographic Society, 1946

Issued as a supplement to The National Geographic Magazine in April 1946, this large-format map of India and Burma represents one of the most consequential cartographic statements produced in the final phase of British rule in South Asia. Compiled and drawn by the Cartographic Section of the National Geographic Society, the map presents the subcontinent at a moment of profound political transition, scarcely a year before Indian independence and the subsequent partition of British India.

The map combines physical geography with a dense overlay of political and infrastructural information. Provincial boundaries, princely states (shown in green), railway systems, roads, canals, oil pipelines, and elevation data are rendered with characteristic National Geographic clarity. Burma is shown in full administrative detail, reflecting its recent separation from British India in 1937 yet continued strategic importance during the immediate post-war period. The inclusion of Ceylon and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands situates the subcontinent within a wider Indian Ocean framework.

Editorial notes printed on the sheet explicitly acknowledge the complexity of India’s internal political subdivisions, directing readers to a separate map on the verso—an unusual admission that underscores the administrative instability of the period. As such, this map functions not merely as a geographic survey but as a documentary artefact of late-colonial knowledge production. Surviving examples remain highly sought after for their scale, graphic authority, and historical proximity to one of the twentieth century’s defining geopolitical ruptures.

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