The present paper picks up a theme explored more fully in the context of the ideological dimensions of cartography.' It is concerned with the dialogue that arises from the intentional or unintentional suppression of knowledge in maps. It is based on a theory of cartographic silence. My reading of the map is not a technical one (this already has a voluminous literature) but a political one. The aim in this paper is to probe those silences which arise from deliberate policies of secrecy and censorship and to examine the more indeterminate silences rooted in often hidden procedures or rules. These rules, it can be argued, are a sort of subconscious mentalite that mediates the knowledge contained in maps in order to maintain the political status quo and the power of the state. Although much of what is said here applies to all periods, including the present,2 the focus is on early modern Europe. Maps from the sixteenth century onwards offer particularly clear opportunities for the exploration of a new perspective on the changing and reciprocal relationships between the rise of the nation state and the expansion of cartography.3 The establishment of stability and durability, the primary tasks of each and every nation state,4 in early modern Europe as at other times, provides the background to this essay. In outlining, first, the theoretical framework, it will be argued that cartography was primarily a form of political discourse5 concerned with the acquistion and maintenance of power. Examples drawn from the maps themselves will then be used in support of this argument.