Reviews: Atlas of Mexico

Summary

This review evaluates the 1970 Atlas of Mexico, a wide-ranging cartographic survey of Mexico’s physical environment and socioeconomic conditions in the mid-1960s. Organized into sections on population, agriculture, transportation, services, commerce, and industry, the atlas combines maps with statistical tables and population pyramids. The reviewer commends its breadth, clear design, and usefulness to scholars and business readers, while identifying weaknesses in its cartographic methods. Dot maps become difficult to compare at high densities, and choropleth maps based on absolute values may distort spatial interpretation. Proportional-circle and ratio maps, together with consolidation of overlapping maps, would communicate patterns more effectively. The atlas is therefore judged a valuable interim record of Mexico’s socioeconomic transformation. A revised edition incorporating census data from around 1970 would substantially improve its capacity to reveal the location and extent of ongoing change.