These 11 declassified maps show how the CIA saw the world at the height of the Cold War

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May 6, 2017 9:21 PM

In honor of the CIA's Cartography Center's 75th anniversary, the agency released a bevy of maps detailing the world since the start of the Cold War.

Suspected sites of missiles in Cuba, 1962.

Perhaps more so than any other tool used by the clandestine services, an accurate map can mean the difference between success and failure — or between life and death.

The CIA, renowned for its secrecy, has long kept its maps and cartographic methods under wraps.

In honor of the agency's Cartography Center's 75th anniversary last year, however, the CIA put a number of maps online, revealing how "the company" has viewed the world since its inception after World War II.

President Franklin Roosevelt created the agency that would eventually become the CIA in the early 1940s. The map division produced a bevy of maps vital to strategic planning during the war, according to National Geographic.

The agency's mapmakers had a broad mission, supplying maps and data relevant to national security issues facing the country. In doing so, the CIA said in a statement, "

Oil transport and refining facilities in the Middle East in the early 1950s.

A map of French and Viet Minh areas of operations during the 1950s.

Chinese railroad construction in the mid-1950s.

Suspected sites of missiles in Cuba, 1962.

Transportation routes in and around West and East Berlin in the 1960s.

Bantustans in South Africa in 1973.

Southern Lebanon and environs in 1977.

Ethnic groups in Afghanistan in 1979.

Central Moscow in 1980.

Yugoslavia in 1981.

Population changes due to refugee movement on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, 1982.

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