Wolf Tietze · 1982
This review assesses the fifth edition of the Atlas of Finland (Suomen Kartasto), published from 1977 by the National Board of Survey and the Geographical Society of Finland. It traces the atlas's origins to nearly two decades before Finnish independence and credits its early editions with presenting information about the Grand Principality and strengthening national identity. The reviewer praises its development, especially since Leo Aario's fourth edition, into a comprehensive regional-geographical reference. Hundreds of maps, statistics, and explanatory texts in Finnish, Swedish, and English combine broad coverage with standardized scales, symbols, and colours. The reviewer emphasizes their readability and interconnected content, whose full use requires sustained consultation. The fifth edition is presented as a continuing compilation of statistical-geographical knowledge, intended to underpin school geography materials and reach a wide public through booksellers and kiosks. The reviewer strongly endorses its educational aim of helping citizens, including political decision-makers, understand the challenges and limitations of physical, biological, and social environments.
Bengt Rystedt · 2015
Bengt Rystedt describes the fifth edition of the Atlas of Finland (1977–94) as a joint publication of the Geographical Society of Finland and the National Land Survey. Specialists designed maps and wrote explanatory texts, making extensive use of statistics. Its 25 folio volumes covered 44 subjects and allowed Finland to be shown on one page at 1:1,000,000. Map and diagram legends were trilingual, with separate Swedish and English texts. The edition concluded with Pentti Alalammi’s edited Finland’s Landscapes, and Urban and Rural Milieus (1994), published in Finnish, Swedish and English, which Rystedt characterizes as Finnish geographers’ “love-letter” to Finland’s landscape.
