Main Page
Welcome to the explain xkcd wiki!
We have an explanation for all 3245 xkcd comics, and only 67 (2.1%) are incomplete. Help us finish them!
Latest comic
| Border Message |
 Title text: Thanks to differences in logging regulations, the messages actually turned out to be visible from the air. |
Explanation
Quite a lot of US States have very long, straight borders, in some cases due to lacking obvious geographic features round the area. This may well be quite boring for boundary legistrators, having to just draw long straight lines. In this comic though, legislators who were negotiating the boundary between two geographic areas ("Southlake" and "East Valley") livened up the normally boring process by arranging for the boundary to spell out a message when viewed on a map. It's unknown whether the areas are municipal regions, counties, etc. The boundary definition includes multiple areas β such as the bottom of the W, the interior of the O's and other letters with "holes", the apostrophe and so on β that are exclaves (probably of the northern territory, that are surrounded by the southern one, in most cases), (unlabeled) enclaved territories in their own right that are associated with no other disconnected area, or possibly terra nullius. This would be very inconvenient for both tourists and locals, since they would have to constantly consult the map if they want to know whether they are in East Valley or Southlake.
The title text implies that the area around the border is forested. Due to the different logging regulations in the two areas, the densities or types of trees on each side of the border are so different that you can see the border, and hence the messages, when looking down on the land. What logging would happen in the 'no man's land' between the letters is unclear (possibly none?), but evidentally that is different as well.
This comic may have been inspired by gerrymandering: defining voting districts to favor a particular group. This often results in districts with very unusual shapes. The comic was published on the day after Virginia voters passed a referendum approving redistricting that favored the Democratic Party. See also the Belgium-Netherlands border, which is extremely chaotic. This comic also happens to have been published on Earth Day.
Transcript
- [A section of a map showing the border between two geographic areas, East Valley and Southlake (marked on it). The border is shown as a dotted line, and it spells out a message, followed by a small diagonal part:]
- WE HOPE YOU'RE ENJOYING THIS MAP
- [Caption below comic:]
- When local legislators get bored
View comic discussionNew here?
Last 7 days (Top 10) |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
You can read a brief introduction about this wiki at explain xkcd. Feel free to create an account and contribute to the wiki! We need explanations for xkcd comics, characters, What If? articles, and everything in between. If it is referenced in an xkcd comic, it should be here.
- If you're new to wiki editing, see the explain xkcd:Editor FAQ for a specific guidance to this wiki and the more general help on how to edit wiki pages. There's also a handy wikicode cheatsheet.
- Discussion about the wiki itself happens at the Community portal.
- You can browse the comics from the list of all comics or by navigating the category tree at Category:Comics.
- The incomplete explanations are listed here. Feel free to help out by expanding them!
Rules
Don't be a jerk!
There are a lot of comics that don't have set-in-stone explanations; feel free to put multiple interpretations in the wiki page for each comic.
If you want to talk about a specific comic, use its discussion page.
Please only submit material directly related to xkcd and, of course, only submit material that can legally be posted and freely edited. Off-topic or other inappropriate content is subject to removal or modification at admin discretion, and users who repeatedly post such content will be blocked.
If you need assistance from an admin, post a message to the Admin requests board.
