Michel Cabouret · 1991
This review examines the new National Atlas of Sweden, launched in 1990, with particular attention to its first volume, Maps of Sweden. Intended to replace the scientifically important but outdated atlas issued between 1953 and 1971, the new work was planned as a seventeen-volume bilingual Swedish-English series to be completed from 1990 to 1995. Its themes range from population, agriculture, forests, environment, infrastructure, and cultural life to a concluding regional geography of Sweden; digital editions were also envisaged. Coordinated by Stockholm University’s Department of Human Geography, the project brings together the National Land Survey, Statistics Sweden, the Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography, more than three hundred specialists, and substantial parliamentary funding. The first volume contains twenty-four contributions tracing Swedish cartography from classical representations and early modern maps to military surveys, cadastral plans, nautical and topographic mapping, aerial photography, satellites, and remote sensing. It also discusses geodesy, projection problems, geographical-name standardization, and the use of historical maps in agrarian geography, local history, and genealogy. The reviewer praises the volume’s authoritative scholarship, methodological value, and exceptional illustrations, especially Ulf Sporrong’s analysis of Sweden’s rich cadastral archives. Nevertheless, two weaknesses are identified: the bibliography omits two major predecessor atlases, and the concluding general maps of Sweden have been criticized for their cartographic principles and inconsistent nomenclature. Although these shortcomings generated politically charged controversy because public funds supported the project, they should not obscure the first volume’s substantial contribution to the history, practice, and modernization of Swedish cartography.
