Ordnance Survey, the UK’s official mapping organization, opposed to the decision, saying they ‘want to avoid publishing maps which are mostly sea.’

The state-owned cartography company told the BBC, “It would be virtually impossible to print a paper map, with any usable detail, of this vast geography.”

The edict only applies to maps of Scotland published by Scottish public authorities. It allows cartographers to enclose the islands if they also publish their reasons for doing so.

Boxing islands, or obviously altering their placement for the sake of detail and layout, is a common practice in cartography. Maps of Spain do it with the Canary Islands, Japan with Okinawa, Ecuador with the Galápagos, and the US with Alaska and Hawaii.

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