I am trying to make a map about the Byzantime Empire.

As you can see in the picture, some part of it is in node-form (present day Tunesia).
http://s938.photobucket.com/albums/ad223/flyingdutchman12/?action=view&current=Romanmap.png

When I select it and attribute a color to the area, the area is not coloured according to the area of the nodes, but it follows nicely and precisely the coast line.
http://s938.photobucket.com/albums/ad223/flyingdutchman12/?action=view&current=Romanmap1a.png

That is something I don't understand.

This problem is a fundamental one. An answer to this question will help me enormously with my work.



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Is the Mediterranean Sea another object on top of the on you're working on?

Without having an SVG file to examine, that would be one guess, that the water lies above the country in z order. It's 100% opaque, so none of the country shows through. Another possibility is that whoever drew it used clipping http://tavmjong.free.fr/INKSCAPE/MANUAL/html/Clip.html (if it was made with Inkscape).

If it was made with Inkscape, you can confirm this by selecting the country with Selection tool, and looking at the status bar. If would say something like "Path (xx nodes) clipped in Layer 1".

It is as you predicted. The sea is atop the neighbouring states. But why should anyone do it like that? It seems to me that it takes a lot more work.

Well for the most part, I think you'd really have to find the artist and ask them!

But I'm guessing it was done to avoid the "bug" where adjacent objects which don't have strokes often will have a faint line between them, due to Inkscape's automatic anti-aliasing. (I'm not sure if it's technically a bug, but can be just as annoying.) This might be how they handled that situation. If you plan to have strokes on your country/objects, you wouldn't probably do it that way. But then with strokes, it might be harder to achieve really fine detail, like on the coastline.

I believe ivan louette made a filter that helps obscure the faint line. Let's see if I can find it....ok yes, in this message: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=9034&p=33279&hilit=stitch#p32882 You'll just have to experiment, to see which technique you prefer -- IF you plan not to use any strokes.

Ty, brynn, for answering. I will ask the creator.