New Zealand 1628

     In 2000 New Zealand issued a map stamp to commemorate the first sunrise in the Third millennium. (Purists would say that the first dawn of the 21st century did not occur until 2001.) The map shows a part of the world from East Africa to North and South America. with the International Dateline running vertically in the middle, in general along the 180° meridian. In the bottom left corner is the local time the sun appeared over the horizon at Pitt Island in the Chathams east of New Zealand on January 1, 2000.
     Brian Marshall, Geography and Environmental Science Librarian for the University of Auckland Library has called my attention to the following errors in political boundaries shown on the stamp: "Kashmir as part of Pakistan, rather than as a disputed territory; Sarawak, Brunei and Sabah as being part of Indonesia; Eritrea has been reabsorbed by Ethiopia; and Yemen is shown as two countries rather than one."
     There is an error at the southern tip of South America where Chile and Argentina share possession of the island of Tierra del Fuego. Also, the shape and boundary between the state of Maine, United States and the province of New Brunswick, Canada is incorrect.
     Finally, while the International Date Line shows two of the major deviations from the 180° meridian, the most recent change made by Kiribati to keep all its territory in one time zone is not shown.