New edition of the "Atlas of Finland"

Summary

This article critically reviews the fourth edition of the Atlas of Finland, published in 1960, and assesses its scholarly value, cartographic methods, thematic organization, and limitations. Building on Finland’s distinguished tradition of national atlas production since 1899, the new edition was initiated by J. G. Granö and completed by an editorial team led by V. Auer and L. Aario, with contributions from leading Finnish specialists and researchers at the University of Helsinki. The bilingual Finnish-English atlas, supplemented in places by Swedish, comprises 415 maps on 89 sheets. Despite its relatively compact size, it covers an exceptionally broad range of natural and socioeconomic subjects, with socioeconomic maps occupying the largest share. The natural-science sections address geodesy, geophysics, geology, Quaternary deposits, climate, hydrography, water resources, flora, forests, peatlands, and animal distribution. Particularly valuable are the updated geological map, long-term climatic series, detailed treatment of marine and inland waters, hydropower planning, forest-resource maps, and representations of changing animal ranges. Population geography is examined dynamically through maps from different dates, while the economic sections portray agriculture, forestry, industry, transport, tourism, foreign trade, ports, cooperatives, finance, education, health, elections, and regional disparities. The atlas effectively reveals Finland’s major spatial contrasts, including the concentration of population, industry, higher wages, and imports in the south and southwest; the greater poverty, living costs, seasonal unemployment, and weaker accessibility of the north and northeast; and the importance of forests, hydropower, export ports, and expanding trade with the Soviet Union. Its principal strengths are thematic breadth, careful coordination among maps, effective multicolor design, generally high-quality generalization, attention to temporal and spatial change, and numerous original or synthetic maps, especially those of physical-geographical and economic regionalization. The reviewers nevertheless identify several weaknesses: excessive simplification of relief on the hypsometric map, missing age symbols on the geological map, outdated and incomplete unemployment data, frequent reliance on choropleth techniques, and the absence of comprehensive geomorphological, soil, geobotanical, zoogeographical, and general economic maps. Although prepared before international standards for national atlases were formulated and therefore not fully aligned with them, the atlas is judged a major advance in national cartography. Its scientific and practical importance was confirmed by the high appraisal it received at the 1960 International Geographical Congress exhibition in Stockholm.