The national atlas and its place in cartography

Summary

This paper examines the role of national atlases in cartography. Traditionally, atlases served as compendiums of topographical knowledge, but over the past two decades, driven by the needs of rapidly developing countries, they have evolved to incorporate economic and social data against a topographical backdrop. This shift has made world atlases increasingly impractical due to inconsistent national statistics, thereby promoting the rise of national atlases. Concurrently, changes in geography education, emphasizing in-depth study of one's own country, have heightened the demand for simplified national atlases for schools. Despite publishers' preference for universally marketable reference books, the author argues that the trend, particularly in Southern Africa, points toward national reference books combining maps with textual and tabular data, tailored to educational levels and extending to university and planning needs.