Geographical Reviews: National Atlas of India

Summary

This review examines the preliminary Hindi edition of the National Atlas of India (1957), prepared by the National Atlas Organisation under the direction of S. P. Chatterjee. The atlas comprises 26 color plates offering an up-to-date cartographic representation of India's physical, economic, and social conditions. The review highlights significant innovations, including the adoption of Hindi for titles and legends, the use of the metric system, and the application of Lambert's conformal conic projection. It provides a detailed assessment of individual maps—covering administration, physiography, drainage, climate, minerals, soils, forests, agriculture, industry, transportation, and population—noting both their scholarly strengths and occasional cartographic weaknesses, such as readability issues on certain plates. The author concludes that this atlas marks a major achievement in Indian cartography and anticipates the forthcoming English edition at 1:1,000,000 scale.