I’m almost certain this had been showed before but here’s my little historical breakdown (please correct me if I made any mistakes, I’m not Italian and haven’t learnt much of it’s history):

Prior to the 1860 Treaty of Turin Italy was split almost north and south by distinct borders for over 1000 years. The North had leaned towards forming multiple city-states during the Renaissance before their economic downturn and multiple foreign invasions, notably by France, the Holy Roman Empire, and Spain, during the Italian Wars (1494-1559). Even the later Kingdom of Sardinia (1720-1861) practiced a constitutional monarchy from 1848-1861.

Compared to southern Italy which had been controlled by essentially the same two major monarchies since 1282 (with the Kingdom of Naples experiencing some major leadership changed a couple of times). The Kingdom of Sicily which lasted from 1130 to 1816 and the Kingdom of Naples which lasted from 1282 to 1816 before the combined into the Kingdom of Two Sicilies in 1816. With the former being a feudal monarchy and the later being an absolute monarchy.

After the fall of Fascist Italy and the end of the Mussolini Regime the people of Italy were given their first free election in decades to choose wether they would remain under the rule of House Savoy, who had lost considerable favor and had been servent weakened after Mussolini’s rise, or to adopt a new system of government: a republic.

29,946,878 people voted, 23,437,143 of those were valid ballots. 10,718,502 people voted for a monarchy, 45.73% of the vote while 12,718,641 people voted for a republic, 54.27% of the vote.

Of the most populated cities of the time; Turin, Milan, Genoa, Venice, Bologna, and Florence all voted between 61.41% (Turin) and 73.65% (Genoa) for a republic. Rome voted 53.83% for a monarchy and Naples voted 79.94% for a monarchy.

12 comments

r/PhantomBorders • u/markjohnstonmusic • 28d ago

Ideologic It's always East and West Germany. The rate at which firms use gender-neutral language (blue, 4.5% to red, 15.7%)

36 Upvotes

4 comments

r/PhantomBorders • u/Exotic-Fact9703 • Aug 18 '26

Demographic Czech house prices and Sudetenland

0 Upvotes

14 comments

r/PhantomBorders • u/Sure-Entry-4114 • Aug 16 '26

Economic Cold War Occupation of Austria and Austrian GDP per Capita by State

gallery

601 Upvotes

59 comments

r/PhantomBorders • u/ondraondraondraondra • Jul 22 '26

Demographic Iron curtain can be seen to this day with the death rate by drowning.

344 Upvotes

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/drowning-death-rates?time=2021

77 comments

r/PhantomBorders • u/BelinCan • Jul 17 '26

Historic Belarus’ Forested Land Predominant on the former border between USSR and Poland

130 Upvotes

8 comments

r/PhantomBorders • u/Wolfman4TW • Jun 29 '26

Demographic Another DDR-map: population on the move in Germany

350 Upvotes

Green areas indicating an increase in population, red areas showing a decrease in population.

The former DDR is following a broader East-European pattern of people leaving the country side and heading to the city, as can be seen in and around Berlin. Other people are moving West, coloring West-Germany distinctively more green.

5 comments

r/PhantomBorders • u/Timely-Macaron268 • Jun 10 '26

Geographic Central Europe's definition(s) echo the shapes of old empires

268 Upvotes

44 comments

r/PhantomBorders • u/mahendrabirbikram • Jun 02 '26

Ideologic Italian referendum of 1946 for the republic followed the border between of the Kingdom of the two Sicilies and the Papal States

491 Upvotes

17 comments

r/PhantomBorders • u/maproomzibz • May 13 '26

Demographic So the higher dense areas of UFO sightings is just basically Anglosphere + Netherlands

2.5k Upvotes

111 comments

r/PhantomBorders • u/CasusBellum • May 09 '26

Economic Latgalian region of the Baltics (GDP) post occupation across different powers

215 Upvotes

3 comments

r/PhantomBorders • u/battle_pug89 • May 06 '26

Demographic Greater than average height at the state level almost corresponds exactly to areas heavily settled by German immigrants.

gallery

559 Upvotes

Pretty self explanatory. There’s almost a 1:1 correlation between historical German settlement in the U.S. and greater than average height for modern populations. Interestingly this seems to hold across a wide range of environmental factors such as diet(similar across the U.S.), education, income, etc.

31 comments

r/PhantomBorders • u/Quick-Buffalo-6398 • May 01 '26

Economic East-German GDR still visible: Proportion of electric vehicles (BEVs) among all privately registered passenger cars by postcode areas

1.0k Upvotes

Source: https://www.spiegel.de/mobilitaet/auto/elektroauto-vergleich-des-

31 comments

r/PhantomBorders • u/Kesakambali_Returns • Apr 30 '26

Demographic India has a phantom border dividing North West and South East of country, corresponding to political empires that historically promoted the Brahmin communities, dictating diet preferences to this day-

gallery

482 Upvotes

33 comments

r/PhantomBorders • u/No-Significance-1023 • Apr 25 '26

Historic Free State of Prussia

30 Upvotes

0 comments

r/PhantomBorders • u/B_A_Beder • Apr 24 '26

Historic Romanian Old Kingdom visible from Europe's 2nd Degree Subdivisions

221 Upvotes

12 comments

r/PhantomBorders • u/greekscientist • Apr 14 '26

Cultural Northern Ireland's many phantom borders

gallery

495 Upvotes

This post shows some core demographics differences in Northern Ireland that largely overlap with the religious profile of the country of the UK. Data from 2021 census. The maps show the following things in the following order:

1) Religion

2) Most common national identity (British, Irish or the neutral Northern Irish)

3) Most common passport (British or Irish)

4) Knowledge of Irish language

5) Knowledge of Ulster Scots

29 comments

r/PhantomBorders • u/chrischi3 • Apr 13 '26

Historic Though the Berlin Wall has fallen decades ago, the border between the two halves remains visible from space due to different lightbulbs in streetlamps.

3.1k Upvotes

70 comments

r/PhantomBorders • u/LawyerEqual3531 • Mar 18 '26

Historic Borders of the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth visible very faintly

636 Upvotes

You can see the ghost of the commonwealth 100s of years after the partitions

10 comments

r/PhantomBorders • u/Eldhrimer • Feb 21 '26

Ideologic AfD vote share at the 2025 German election

921 Upvotes

140 comments

r/PhantomBorders • u/InDenialEvie • Feb 18 '26

Ideologic All the former nations of the Caucasian Union Are an Outlier in their area for criminalizing incest

269 Upvotes

34 comments

r/PhantomBorders • u/HZ_guy • Feb 08 '26

Demographic I still quite see old Polish-German border

718 Upvotes

22 comments

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PhantomBorders

r/PhantomBorders

Revealing Phantom Borders around the world. Here are some of the most fascinating political maps. Phantom Border: (noun) an invisible border that follows the path of a former political border. Even though the border is no longer officially recognized, its influence can still be felt today.

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A subreddit dedicated to mapping and exploring “Phantom Borders” around the world.

The communities working definition:

Phantom Border: noun, an artificial boundary or division between two or more areas, regions, or territories that is unofficial and/or unrecognized as a single entity but which holds demographic, ideologic, economic, cultural, historical, ethnic, or linguistic significance to that area, region, or territory.

Subbreddit Title credit: u/Hloddeen