Atlas of the Union of South Africa / Atlas of the Union of South Africa
DEAtlas of the Union of South Africa / Atlas vam die Unie van Suid-afrika
South Africa · The Government Printer · 1960
Related Reviews & Articles
Cartographical Progress: Atlas of the Union of South Africa
T. J. D. Fair · 1963
This is a review of the Atlas of the Union of South Africa, published in 1960. Initiated in 1947 to address a serious lack of systematic information on the country's resources and socio-economic structure, the Atlas was compiled by A. M. Talbot and W. J. Talbot of the University of Cape Town. It comprises seven main sections—Relief, Geology, Mining, Soils, Vegetation and Fisheries; Climate and Water Resources; Population; Agriculture; Industries and Occupations; Transportation; and External Trade—and includes 598 maps. The authors' introduction meticulously details source materials, the merits and limitations of various mapping methods, and the reliability of the maps, with persistent attention to growth trends and changing patterns since 1911. Although funding constraints resulted in mostly monochrome printing, the Atlas is regarded as a high-standard scientific work of significant value for geographical analysis.
Regional atlases: a summary survey
Ena L. Yonge · 1962
This article provides a systematic summary review of approximately one hundred regional atlases from around the world, organized primarily by continent (or other large region) and then alphabetically by country within each group. The author begins by noting that the ever-increasing flood of atlases—national, regional, topical, and special—makes individual reviews impossible, thus necessitating summary evaluations to acknowledge important publications while respecting space constraints. The review covers representative works from Europe, Asia, Africa, Oceania, North America, and South America, encompassing road atlases, historical-geographical atlases, national atlases, climatic atlases, economic atlases, and school atlases. Each atlas is assessed in terms of its compiling institution, editors, scales, number of plates, content structure, cartographic techniques, printing quality, and scholarly value, with notable features and shortcomings highlighted. For instance, the European section evaluates works such as the Euroatlas, Atlas östliches Mitteleuropa, Atlas von Niederösterreich, Atlas de Belgique, Climatic Atlas of Czechoslovakia, Atlas of Denmark, and Atlas of Finland, while the American section covers state atlases from Kansas, Kentucky, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, New York, Ohio, and West Virginia, as well as national atlases from Brazil, Colombia, and Venezuela. The article emphasizes that these atlases not only reflect the research standards of geography and cartography in their respective countries but also serve as vital references for regional planning, economic development, historical research, and education. The author concludes by acknowledging that no single individual can possess sufficient expertise across all aspects of geography, cartography, and linguistics to render definitive critical judgments, yet such summaries offer valuable guidance to scholars, with a forthcoming review of world atlases and special atlases announced.
Reviews: Atlas of the Union of South Africa
S. P. Jackson · 1960
This is an academic review of the Atlas of the Union of South Africa, compiled by A. M. and W. J. Talbot and published by the Government Printer, Pretoria, in 1960. The atlas originated from a 1947 invitation by the Social and Economic Planning Council to the Department of Geography at the University of Cape Town to conduct a systematic survey of the country's natural resources and dependent economic activities. It comprises seven sections and over 700 black-and-white maps and diagrams, covering physical geography, population, transport, agriculture, and trade, based on official statistics from 1910 to 1950. The review praises the high quality of the colored relief and geological maps, the exemplary clarity of the mineral resources map, and the effective use of dot symbols with transparent overlays for economic data. Despite inherent constraints of budget and cartographic methods, the atlas successfully portrays South Africa's resource exploitation and economic growth, serving as a valuable reference not only for geographers but for all interested in the country, and stands as a notable source of fundamental data on South Africa's first-half-20th-century development.
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