Renaming RISK Territories

When I was writing my last blog post about my favorite board game of all time, I got thinking about the infamous map, in comparison to the classic mercator projection you all know, as seen on such quizzes as Countries of the World. Even as a kid, this map bugged me. From the infamous Ukraine-Afghanistan border to islands such as New Zealand, the Philippines, and the Caribbean being erased from existence, the territories of Risk are not to be taken as a 1:1 representative of the real world. While Risk as a board game prioritizes functionality and gameplay over accuracy, which is understandable, some of these are downright laughable when you’ve actually spent enough time looking at a world map, as nearly everyone on this site has.

Now, I could sit here and do a “modern-day realistic redesign” of the board with like 82 different territories and 11 continents like everyone and their grandmother has, but frankly, what would be the point of that? Risk has a playable map like that on the mobile version, and I made my own version back in college which, admittedly, wasn’t very good from a gameplay perspective. So, I decided to do that thing which people on the internet do and correct things. I took it upon myself as a thought exercise to redesign the current board of Risk with accurately-named territories.

Now, with editions such as Risk Legacy, they have, in part, attempted to do this, stepping away from names such as Siam and Ukraine and replacing them with names that really flow off the tongue, such as “Southeast Asia” and “European Russia”. I figured we could do a little better than that.

Now Australia Australasia/Oceania I didn’t change up all that much, as far as territories go. The only major inaccuracy is that Indonesia should realistically be a part of Asia, but again, gameplay over accuracy. No real gripes from me in terms of naming.

Now Africa’s interesting. Remember how I said Risk Legacy renamed some things? Well, they changed the Congo to Central Africa for some reason, even though it only really includes the two Congos. So that I kept as the original, however I changed South Africa to Southern Africa, since it includes everything south of Angola and that term is generally used to refer to the greater region. I also kept Egypt as Egypt and didn’t change it to Libya-Egypt for simplicity’s sake, since Egypt has a much higher population and so much ubiquitous history.

North Africa, however, is notoriously off, seeing as how countries such as Senegal, Nigeria, Gabon, Cameroon, and Ghana are all “north”. I was originally going to call it “West Africa”, since the territory includes much of what was French West Africa when the game originally came out. However, countries such as Morocco aren’t really considered West Africa at all, and so it’s the same issue. I settled on Niger-Maghreb, since it includes the Niger River for which both Niger and Nigeria are named, and the Maghreb, a region which includes much of North Africa.

Now Asia I really did a number on. First, let’s address the Indian elephant in the room: why is South Asia/the Indian subcontinent still just called “India”? Much of Risk uses colonial names/borders for many of these territories, and Pakistan and Bangladesh have historically been a part of the Indian subcontinent for much of history prior to India’s partition in 1947. Afghanistan was also included in colonial India as well as various empires, such as the Persian empire. If there is a name which better describes the entire region, I try to stay away from (Cardinal Direction + Continent Name).

Speaking of which, Afghanistan. This one was the most puzzling to me, considering the territory called “Afghanistan” contains none of actual Afghanistan! It includes just about every other part of Central Asia, though! What’s most baffling is that in the original 1957 La Conquête du Monde, the territory is more correctly labeled “Kazakhstan”, and Hasbro changed it when they bought the rights two years later and began producing it as Risk, for some unknown reason. I restored the original name of Kazakhstan for this reason.

Now, speaking of the former Soviet states, which “Afghanistan” was but the real Afghanistan was never a part of (they did fight a pretty brutal war, though), we have the five Russian territories: Ural, Siberia, Yakutsk, Irkutsk, and Kamchatka. Ural basically just contains the Ural Mountains, but Siberia is where things get weird. So Siberia is used to refer to all of Asian Russia, yet also refers to the region depicted. To avoid confusion, I called the region “Krasnoyarsk”, since that is not only the biggest city by far in the region, but also a Russian krai which takes up much of the region. Similar naming conventions were used for Sakha (Sakha Republic) and Amur-Irkutsk, which contains Amur Oblast as well. Now, Kamchatka was changed to Russian Far East, since Kamchatka is the tiny peninsula which juts out and much of the actual region is called Khabarovsk, however Russian Far East sounds much better than Khabarovsk-Kamchatka, and fits on the board much easier.

Finally, we have Siam and Mongolia. Siam, which I changed to Indochina, since Siam is just the colonial/historical name of Thailand, and Southeast Asia includes all of Indonesia and the Philippines. Indochina refers to the entire region, specifically French Indochina, which included Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia when Risk was released. Since Mongolia includes Manchuria and Korea, two regions which are far more populated and prominent in the region, I changed that one to Manchu-Korea.

So Europe I changed quite a bit as well. First off, Great Britain solely refers to England, Scotland, and Wales, so I changed it to the British Isles, which includes Ireland. Now, let me ask you all a question: in what universe are Germany, Poland, and Hungary considered “Northern Europe”? They’re not even the most “northern”, by a longshot! This region, however, includes much of what is considered Central Asia. Same goes for Ukraine/European Russia being renamed to Eastern Europe.

Now, many people today are confused by Ukraine being Ukraine in the original, but when you look at when the game was made, the reasoning makes a bit more sense. In 1957, when the USSR was still around, the Ukraine was a major Soviet state in Europe, and contained Kiev, a major Soviet city at the time. Still a crap name for the entire region, and so is Russia considering it includes all of Eastern Europe/the former Soviet states, just interesting context-wise.

Now, because the map contains so many instances of Direction+Europe, I changed Western Europe to Franco-Iberia, since it’s mostly just France and the Iberian peninsula, and it highlights the region’s Latin roots.

Now Argentina I kept as Argentina, even though it includes Chile and Uruguay, since it’s by far the largest and most populous country in the region. I could have called it the Southern Cone, but Argentina serves as a better geopolitical and cultural name for the region, rather than just a strictly geographical term.

Peru was changed to Peru-Bolivia and Venezuela was changed to Colombia, since both actually refer to short-lived nations in the 19th century that encapsulate most of the included territory! Gran Colombia included Venezuela and Ecuador, and Peru and Bolivia were joined under the Peru-Bolivian Confederation for three years shortly after.

Finally, we have North America. Quebec being changed to Eastern Canada was the only change from Risk: Legacy that I kept, since it also includes Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island. Similar reasoning was used for Alberta, which includes all of the Prairie Provinces, and Northwest Territory, which includes all three of the Northern Territories.

And there you have it. Anyway, I’ve got some other life stuff to do besides being pedantic on the internet so I’m gonna go do that. Toodles!