Maps are essential décor for any social studies class, and though they are helpful tools in beginning to understand geography, maps are merely 2-D representations of a 3-D world and will always carry certain inherent inaccuracies. Because of their flatness and size restrictions, maps require manipulation, rendering them incapable of showing the actual shape of the earth and the continents, nations, and other features upon it. Though these might seem like necessary concessions, the implications of such manipulations move beyond the blackboard and can have damaging effects; forcing students to see the world in 2-D each day has the attendant effect of teaching them to understand the world in two-dimensional terms. Furthermore, maps present borders as fixed, unchanging entities, which is a misleading implication to present in a history course. Borders have been changing throughout the history of civilization, and the United States is a perfect example of a country with borders that have blurred and bled into one another for decades as states continued to form and join as recently as the 20th century.