In the early 1960s, the American Automobile Association lost Seattle — the nation’s 23rd largest city did not appear on AAA’s United States road map. “It just fell through the editing crack,” a spokesman confessed, and the association expensively recalled and reprinted the map.

A Canadian government tourist office once omitted Ottawa from a brochure prepared for British tourists. The map did include Regina, Calgary, and Winnipeg. The office explained that the map had been compiled before regular air service was available between New York and the Canadian capital, but an executive at the city’s convention bureau said, “Ottawa should be shown in any case, even if the only point of entry was by two-man kayak.”