Tuesday Map: Heineken’s “Eurotopia”

The invaluable Strange Maps blog shares this intriguing theoretical map of Europe designed by Dutch beer tycoon Freddy Heineken. A dedicated Europhile, Heineken believed that smaller nations within a larger European framework would be more manageable in the post-Cold War era. In 1992, he coauthored a pamhplet titled “The United States of Europe (a Eurotopia?),” which included the above proposal for a new Europe comprised of small territories of roughly equal, ethnically homogernous populations. Click here for the full list of countries.

Heineken’s map actually predicts the breakup of Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia with some accuracy. Interestingly, he also seems to be proposing a united Ireland. 

This wasn’t the creative Heineken’s only eccentric idea to make the world a better place. He also once proposed bottling his beer in square bottles that could be recycled as bricks to build houses in developing countries.