An interesting enquiry. Look for the dataset in coming months!
BW
>From: Kathryn Furlong <kathryn@...>
>Reply-To: Kathryn Furlong <kathryn@...>
>Subject: Re: Boundary Lengths
>Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2002 14:23:56 +0000
>
>Hello,
>
>My name is Kathryn Furlong, I am a research assistant at the International
>Peace Research Institute (Oslo). I have recently completed compiling the
>data for the Boundary Dataset (a dataset of the world's territorial
>boundary lengths and their changes since the Congress of Vienna (1816)).
>The lengths were compiled using historical maps and atlases and an old-
>fashioned mechanical cartographer's map measurer. I have compared my
>findings regarding contemporary boundary lengths with CIA 1996 and Arc View
>1992 data and found greater than 97% correlation in both cases. There are
>several boundary lengths (although they constitute a small percentage),
>however, that are significantly different (upwards of a 25% % difference)
>from either the CIA or GIS data. It is acknowledged that these data are
>approximations, as all measurements have been rounded to the 10s digit. We
>are hoping to publish this Boundary Dataset on the Internet in the coming
>months.
>
>
>I am also seeking some advice/opinions on a boundary length matter.
>Currently, I am in the process of finishing up the Boundary Dataset report
>and am addressing issues of boundary measurability. In the work of Lewis
>Fry Richardson (published posthumously in 1961) he found that the measured
>length of coastlines tended toward infinity as the base unit of measurement
>went to zero. This led him to hypothesize that, in the absence of an
>international agreement on a base unit of measurement, discrepancies he had
>noted between various published values on boundary length would remain
>common [this is quoted in Ashford (1985) Prophet or Professor? p 226].
>Although he noted certain inconsistencies between territorial border length
>values (An example that Richardson found of this was the border between
>Spain and Portugal. Spanish authorities set the border at 987 km, while
>Portuguese authorities gave a value of 1214 km.), his research was strictly
>related to coastlines.
>
>I would like to address this problem of boundary measurement with the idea
>that: Territorial borders differ from coastlines in that they are defined,
>except in cases where they follow a geographical feature like a river,
>crest of a mountain range etc., by a series of points between which
>straight lines are assumed, thus the detail to which the border is measured
>is somewhat more inherent in how the border is laid and less up to the
>measurer, as is the case with coastlines.
>
>I was wondering if this is in fact a true statement and if people might be
>able to recommend some literature that discusses the methodology of
>international boundary delineation.
>
>Thank-you very much,
>
>Kathryn
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