[kej]

This seems like a good place to ask: I have a memory of a longer story along very similar lines. Maps are made that are increasingly larger, but in the version I'm remembering the maps are in a room of a palace or something?

Does this ring a bell to anyone?

[moss_dog]

Maybe Eco's "On the Impossibility of Drawing a Map of the Empire on a Scale of 1 to 1"?

[kej]

That definitely sounds like part of what I remember. Possibly I read several similar stories around the same time and merged them in my head. Thanks!