Heterogeneous Turkey shows influences from the Middle East, Mediterranean, the Balkan peninsula, and Central Asia, but it’s much more than its clichéd image of where East meets West.

These maps help explain the offensive and what is happening on the ground. Between 25 and 35 million ethnic Kurds inhabit a mountainous region straddling Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Iran and Armenia.

Yet even as regards Turkey, maps deceive. It is not only African shantytowns that don't appear on urban maps. Many shantytowns in Turkey and elsewhere are also missing—as are the considerable ...