. . . In that Empire, the Art of Cartography attained such Perfection that the map of a single Province occupied the entirety of a City, and the map of the Empire, the entirety of a Province. In time, those Unconscionable Maps no longer satisfied, and the Cartographers Guilds struck a Map of the Empire whose size was that of the Empire, and which coincided point for point with it. The following Generations, who were not so fond of the Study of Cartography as their Forebears had been, saw that that vast map was Useless, and not without some Pitilessness was it, that they delivered it up to the Inclemencies of Sun and Winters. In the Deserts of the West, still today, there are Tattered Ruins of that Map, inhabited by Animals and Beggars; in all the Land there is no other Relic of the Disciplines of Geography.
—Suarez Miranda, Viajes de varones prudentes, Libro IV, Cap. XLV, Lerida, 1658
Philosopher Jean Baudrillard would take up the concept and run with it in Simulacra and Simulation (1981), arguing that we now live mainly in the map, in the recreation of reality, rather than in reality itself.
I will probably make a post on some of the ideas from this EXTREMELY short story. With incredibly deep ideas while using essentially one paragraph. One of my favorite short stories ever.
Been loving your writeups and am only now realizing your username is amazing
Haha thank you