National atlas of Australia

Summary

This article provides a systematic critical review of the Atlas of Australian Resources, prepared by Australia’s Department of National Development and issued in installments between 1953 and 1960. It examines the atlas’s origins, compilation process, thematic organization, cartographic techniques, practical significance, and major shortcomings. Conceived in 1948 amid postwar plans for economic reconstruction and development, the project was intended primarily to support resource assessment and use. The original scheme envisaged fifty sheets, forty devoted to resources and their exploitation and ten to regional development projects. Because large parts of Australia lacked adequate topographic and thematic surveys, however, the completed atlas contained only thirty sheets, twenty-five of them using a standard scale of 1:6,000,000. Its preparation required the collection of extensive published and unpublished materials, supplementary field investigations, and cooperation between government cartographers, geographers, and specialists in geology, soils, vegetation, and climate. The review discusses the atlas’s treatment of physical geography, geology and minerals, climate, water, soils, vegetation, population, agriculture, manufacturing, and transport. It particularly praises the updated depiction of the geology and hydrography of previously poorly known inland, northern, and western regions; the detailed classification of mineral deposits; the innovative arrangement of temperature and precipitation maps; and the forward-looking representation of existing, planned, and projected water-management works. Railway and maritime transport maps are also regarded as among the atlas’s strongest components because they combine numerous indicators while remaining comparatively legible. Overall, the atlas is distinguished from more academic national atlases by its consistent emphasis on evaluating and utilizing human, land, water, climatic, and mineral resources. Nevertheless, the article identifies substantial weaknesses. The ten-year publication period caused several sheets—especially those concerning soils, roads, shipping, and proposed construction—to become outdated before completion. Important subjects are absent, including hypsometry, tectonics, geomorphology, evaporation, heat balance, wind regimes, fauna, fisheries, conservation, natural and economic regionalization, unemployment, agrarian relations, and the ethnic composition of the population. Some maps attempt to display accumulated facts without sufficient synthesis or cartographic generalization, producing overloaded symbols and a weak representation of overall structures, particularly in mining, crop cultivation, and manufacturing. Scale choices, page composition, unused sheet space, inconsistent color systems, and the absence of a geographical-name index further reduce usability. The author recommends updated data, differentiated scales, inset maps, use of sheet backs for explanatory text, and maps showing the degree of resource survey coverage in a future edition. Despite these limitations, the atlas is judged a major scholarly and practical achievement: within a relatively modest volume, it offers a broad account of Australia’s natural environment and economy, supports resource planning and geographical education, and substantially corrects the earlier impression that the continent lacked specialized cartographic documentation.