Trudo Dejonghe · 2008
Trudo Dejonghe reviews the 2007 Bosatlas of the Netherlands, a 560-page atlas containing more than 2,400 maps, produced through over two years of editorial and cartographic work. He describes its rapid sell-out and public disputes over maps of landscape attractiveness, carnival villages and football. He criticizes its near-exclusive focus on the Netherlands outside the historical section, citing Barend Kobben’s observation that ignoring nearby Antwerp distorts the mapping of access to urban centres in Zeeuws-Vlaanderen. Dejonghe nevertheless identifies uses for Belgian readers in maps of migration, drug offences, museums and UNESCO sites, alongside Karel Tomei’s landscape photographs. He praises the cartographers’ colour choices and selective detail for producing highly legible maps, and asks whether a comparable Belgian atlas could become a successful reference work.
Barend Köbben · 2008
This review treats De Bosatlas van Nederland as a 560-page national atlas with about 2,400 maps in nineteen thematic chapters, praising its detailed information, explanatory texts, graphs and Bos cartography. The reviewer finds it a beautiful browsing book and useful for geography lessons, while noting that some map choices are too strictly national, sometimes follow available data rather than the appropriate scale, and that chapters such as historical maps, provinces and city-centre plans sit awkwardly within a national atlas; the photographs are valued for beauty more than for explaining the maps. The reviewer calls it a worthy successor to the scientific atlas for a broader public and notes that the first printing sold out within a month and reached first place on the Bestseller 60.
