At the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, after World War I, there was no development economics. Yet, many of the problems that the conference tried to solve were problems of development. Most prominently, Poland was resurrected as a nation state and should be given ‘a prospect of continued life’. There could not be a Polish state without a territory, which meant that the national boundaries of the surrounding states had to be redrawn. To this end, the conference analysed transport infrastructure, deposition of natural resources, geographical features, production facilities and capacities, ethnic composition, history and many other features of the areas in question.
An analysis of the media, in particular the maps, that the conference used to debate and develop Europe‘s new boundaries will give insight into the conference‘s economic reasoning.