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31-03-2008

Paper versus Digital

The New ‘Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World’ in the Internet Age

 

The publication of the authoritative ‘Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World’ is always a feast for the land of cartographers, geographers and the like. An atlas is considered the ultimate cartographic product, and the Times Atlas stands on its own in the reference atlas category. However, one might wonder if a traditional paper product like the Times Atlas has a right to exist in our world of Googles and Microsofts. Before answering this question let’s look at the Atlas itself. It will also be compared with another authority in mapping and one of its competitors, the “National Geographic Atlas of the World”.

 

by: Menno-Jan Kraak


Figure 1: Detail of atlas plate 121 Chile South, Argentina and Uruguay, scale 1:5,500,000. The map of Tierra del Fuego shows the detail, beauty, and crispness of the atlas maps.

 

Described in the foreword, the history of the Times Atlas goes back to an edition that was a translation of the renowned Andree’s ‘Allgemeiner Handatlas’ published in Germany in 1880. Until the First World War the German reference atlases of Andree and Stieler where unbeaten for detail. The Times Atlas has seen several editions, among them a six-volume atlas published at the end of the 1950s. Today’s twelfth edition finds its roots in a single comprehensive volume published in 1967. Over the years globalization has reached the Times Atlas in a positive way. The early editions were very much Eurocentric, with only a limited number of maps outside this continent. The later editions try to balance content equally over the different continents.

 

What the atlas looks like

The atlas starts with an introductory section that includes satellite images of all the continents, the earth’s environment and climate, including data from the 2007 reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). All kinds of statistics on the world’s population and its economies are found here as well. In addition to the traditional lists of the highest mountains, longest rivers, biggest lakes and largest cities, the latest trends in mapping are explained. An overview of the size, population and capitals of countries are also not to be missed. The ‘real’ atlas, if you like, starts on page 70 and consists of 125 double-paged atlas plates. The maps on those plates have scales between 1:1,000,000 and 1:2,500,000 for some parts of Europe and North America, 1:5,000,000 for most other parts of the world, and regional and continental overview maps at scales of 1:10,000,0000 and smaller. The maps have a traditional design with layer tinting representing heights from low to high via pastel shades of green, yellow, brown to white [see figure 1.] There is no hill shading applied. All maps were generated from the Collins-Bartholomew databases (which explains why four different ‘sizes’ of Times atlas can exist). The 223-page index with over 200,000 entries takes up the biggest part of the atlas.

 Figure 2 and 3: The Aral Sea as found in the 5th edition of 1975 and in the 12th edition of 2007

Over 20,000 changes have been incorporated into the new edition. Among them are the latest boundary changes and over 3,500 name changes. These include new capitals (Nay Pyi Taw in Myanmar and Melekeok in Palau), new national parks, updates of roads and railroads such as the Lhasa-Golmud railway in China, and changes due to shrinking lakes like the Aral Sea [see figure 2 and 3]. Of course every user will judge an atlas in part by trying to find their hometown. Mine is not small, and Enschede, the Netherlands, is easily found. Also map content in the region around Enschede, as well as in the Netherlands is well balanced. I could not find mistakes, and the choices of what to display could all be justified.

 

Alternatives?

Finding a recent alternative for the “Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World” is not easy. The “National Geographic Atlas of the World” (8th Edition; 2005) comes closest. Its structure is similar to the Times Atlas; for example, it also includes an introductory section followed by the atlas plates. The introductory section in particular shows the always brilliant and innovative thematic mapping of National Geographic. Although it is partly a matter of taste, these maps [see figure 4] include dyna­mics not to be found in the more traditional Times map design. The main atlas has a familiar look with color bands along the different boundaries. The maps include hill shading.

 


Figure 4: Detail of refugee map on plate 16
Migration, “National Geographic Atlas of the World”
Searching

Reference atlases are used to find locations, to see spatial relations, to get an overview of a region, to compare regions, or just for armchair travelling. Let’s do a search. Where can we find the town ‘Sorong’? Atlases solve this via the index [see figure 5]. The Times Atlas not only gives the plate number and a rectangle location, just like the National Geographic Atlas, but also the location in longitude and latitude.

 

Searching ‘Sorong’ via the Internet can of course be done using a search engine, but using a dedicated gazetteer is a better option. There are different types of gazetteer, some related to the national mapping agency of a country or region and others claiming to be global. Examples of this last category are the

 


gazetteers from the Alexandria Digital Library, JRC and Maplandia. The last uses the data behind Google Maps and Google Earth. With these gazetteers you might be able to find more locations then in either atlas, especially in well-mapped areas such as Western Europe or North America. However, the search results are often blank maps with a single symbol indicating the search result, while the atlas maps give you context as well.

Verdict

Both paper reference atlases and online gazetteers have a role to play. The big advantage of an atlas such as the “Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World” is that its content has been screened in detail by professional editors, and the cartographic quality is good and uniform over all maps. It is also much easier to browse and compare the maps - contrary to what you expect from a web browser. And another advantage, and not a small one, the maps are big - there is overview. On the other hand, if you are interested in a particular location the gazetteers with their options to link to all kinds of relevant information might be a better choice. Want to know what ‘Sorong’ looks like? Try a Google picture search and you’ll know.

 


Figure 5: Searching for ‘Sorong’ in the Times Atlas and in the National Geographic Atlas; both map details also allow a good comparison of how the two atlases depict the geography

 

Menno-Jan Kraak kraak@itc.nl is head of ITC’S Geo-Information Processing Department. He is a member of the editorial board of several international journals in the field of Cartography and GIS.