I'll babble randomly...
No, I don't know what the correct date is. This thing had been in a relative's attic for who knows how long, and I'm not sure what it's origin is... though in all likelyhood it's U.S.-made. I'll explain why I think that...
As others have alluded to, I believe it has some disparities. It's not 'totally up-to-date' in all areas, perhaps. But, one thing of note, is that the borders of the CONUS 48 States is exactly like they are today. Yes, even the Gadsden Purchase, it would seem.
Some more trivial things:
I noticed Argentina is actually 'Argentine Republic', and that's only applicable to the upper ~2/3rds maybe of the current Argentina. The rest is labeled as 'Patagonia'. There appears to be a border between the two, but tough to tell. That's the thing about this map, it's so faded, the only colors you can easily distinguish are the political/national boundary areas that were some kind of purple-ish color, once upon a time. The rest are pretty faded, so it's tough to distinguish sometimes, especially around areas where there's a whole bunch of rivers that can confuse the lines of the national borders (that's why I didn't bother going into SE Asia in my description - rivers galore in that area).
Also, I noticed - instead of 'Oceania' (Aus, NZ, East Indies, etc.), the map calls it "Oceanica". Must be the old name for it. I'd never heard of that before.
"India" - The label actually extends into Burma, Thailand (though Siam is on there, smaller) Laos, Vietnam... it's almost like they're calling "India" a sub-continent.
(What is now ) the modern India is clearly labeled "Hindosian"... right above the larger, bolder "INDIA" that extends way into SE Asia. So maybe they're trying to say (modern) India is Hindosian India, via that labeling technique.
China (like Russia), there is a 'core country' in their "Empire", which is a distinctly different color from their other major colonies/holdings, even though they may be contiguous with the heartland of the empire. But yeah, "CHINESE EMPIRE" covers a big area, but "CHINA" (slightly smaller, and less bolded) is the lighter-colored area that makes up.... eh, about 35-40% of the overall empire. But there's a bunch of other lands within the empire.
^Just like Russia... the area that is distictly labeled as Russia, is between Prussia/Austria, and the Urals.
Japan = "Japan Islands". How eloquent.
There's something west of Tibet, definitely part of China today, starts with a "BO...", can't make it out.
When you get to the central Asian countries, it's difficult to tell what's independent, and what isn't. Between the large "TOORKISTAN", and Chinese Empire, there maybe some stuff in there, but frankly, the border between the former USSR and China is one of the toughest areas on the map for me to describe.
Itlay - I know was fragmented poltically once upon a time in this era. On the map, it's just labeled as Italy (though even that is tough to read, because of the mountains), no evidence of a whole host of sub-states.
"Soudan" is written fairly large, centered about where current Niger is (just south of "Sahara or Great Desert") , much farther west than where I think of Sudan being today, south of Egypt.
DAR-FUR!! -Hey, look at that, that's what they're calling Lake Chad. -The lake, btw, is too large, and is basically circular (though not nearly as badly depicted as Lake Victoria as mentioned earlier (though I don't think it's called L.V., it's some long name I can't quite make out).
Holy Crap... just north of (what is now known as) Lake Victoria, basically everything between the two lakes I've just mentioned, save the coasts... it says "UNEXPLORED", covering a pretty large area of the continent obviously. That's awesome.
Guinea, and Lower Guinea, pretty much cover the area from the Skeleton Coast, all the way up to near the current Guinea location. Within this area, there are other smaller names (perhaps indicating tribal nations, heck if I know) along the way, names like Mbina and a bunch of others that are too 'native' to be able to successfully guess, if you can't quite make them out. As for the (modern) Ivory Coast, Liberia, etc. area - there's plenty (maybe half-dozen) of destinct countries in there (each w/ their own color), west and northwest of the larger "Guinea" areas. I'll attempt to make out one of the larger ones: senegambia. (thanks to Google for helping me finally figure that one out, after about 10 minutes of trying)
The only things I can make out in (modern) Indonesia are Sumatra, Malaya, and Borneo - no surprising names here I guess.
Anyway, it would seem like the USA is more up-to-date, versus other things that we know should have happened already prior to the Gadsden Purchase, that's what made me curious to take on the challenge to accurately date it. And I have no scanner, unfortunately (otherwise I'd have used it to begin with). Oh yeah - and no indication of the ACW going on. It just says "UNITED STATES". But, it could have been made in the North, which wasn't recognizing the rebels.
Now, my eyes are crossed, and I must retire for a while...
(Of course all the research he could have done while typing up the original post would have given him the answer if he knows how to effectively google... I actually double checked all my research results on the posts above with two independent websites each in 15-30 minutes tops, though I failed to follow up on the manchuria/new grenada problem that was pushing the map later than my first time frame result (work is more important than even a video game forum).
