Violence of the Map, Silence of the People: Thematic Maps, Ethnography and the Visual Representations of Ethnic Homogeneity Geography and statistics became two related disciples that were essential to “scientific governance” in early nineteenth century Europe. Supplementing maps with statistical tables became the norm, inspiring visual representation of statistical data in entirely novel forms. Familiar as they may seem to the modern eye, all forms of data graphics such as bar and pie charts, histograms and line graphs were introduced during the first half of the nineteenth century. These new visual techniques enabled the production of highly differentiated thematic maps, or maps that display the occurrence and spatial distribution of phenomena ranging from climate zones to population characteristics. “Choropleths” which were maps divided into self-contained compartments, each of which was tinted with a different hue turned out to be extremely suitable for spatial representation of data external to the map in a direct, visually uncomplicated manner. Combined with the heightened interest on ethnography as a “human science,” this technique gave us the “ethnographic maps” we are most familiar with today. Ethnographic maps are frequently used in popular media as well as scholarly publications to illustrate ethnic groups presumably in situ, and often, to illustrate alternative political boundaries that would follow the “ethnic boundaries” on the map. Innocuous as it may sound, this is a practice with a long and violent history behind it, a history that is inextricably linked to the rise of the nation state. Ethnographic maps of the Ottoman Empire from the mid-nineteenth to the early twentieth century constitute a significant case study for understanding the role cartography played in projecting a nation’s territoriality, and the inevitable violence that followed that process. This paper will review several of such maps against the background of diplomatic crises and subsequently wars that determined the shape of nation states that arose in the former Ottoman realms, and demonstrate how the Ottoman elites, who, unlike their Balkan counterparts had largely remained indifferent to the practice of ethnographic map making, adopted its main principles as they transformed into Turkish nationalists intent on carving out and preserving a Turkish nation state in Asia Minor.