Once upon a time, national glory and cartography were synonymous. Mapmakers then recorded the truth and celebrated progress and precision. Historians enthusiastically endorsed their king's political claims, while geographers produced knowledge that transcended cultural contingencies. Explanations took the forms of red and blue lines, dots and arrows, and universal symbols. There was no place for doubt, jargon, or an incoherent vision of the history of cartography, and certainly no need for theories on the political roles of mapping. This paper is about a topographical map and the theme its authors depicted but chose to not comment upon: "societal adaptability to changes in natural resources." Although they were not intended to, an empirical reading of this map made by the Sino-Swedish Expedition would reveal how cartography addressed several prob-lems of the 20th century, from science policy and geographic governance to the constraints of historicity.