World Atlas

Summary

This historical survey examines the twentieth-century rise and transformation of the world atlas amid growing political interdependence, expanding geographic education, and cheaper printing technologies. Through comparative analysis of major European and American titles—including Stieler’s Hand-Atlas, The Times Atlas of the World, Goode’s School Atlas, and Rand McNally publications—it traces changes in regional coverage, scale, projections, and representations of physical and political space. The study finds a gradual decline in Eurocentric and nationally focused mapping, especially after the world wars and decolonization. Innovations such as standardized scales, varied projections, and emphasis on physical continuity reflected an increasingly interconnected world. The State of the World Atlas later challenged encyclopedic conventions through selective thematic mapping of inequality, militarization, and environmental risk. World atlases thus function not merely as reference works but as historically contingent expressions of geopolitical priorities, market demands, and geographic imagination.