The National Physical Atlas of China

Summary

The National Physical Atlas of China is a large-format comprehensive scientific reference atlas representing national achievement in atlas compilation, published by China Atlas Press in 1999, with Chinese and English editions issued simultaneously. It consists of five sections—Preface Maps, Physical Environment, Natural Resources, Natural Disasters, and Natural Utilization and Reservation—organized into 18 map groups, containing 540 map sheets, 115 charts and photos, and nearly 300,000 words of map explanations. The atlas systematically integrates the findings of integrated scientific surveys and long-term observational data accumulated since the founding of the People’s Republic of China, together with historical records spanning thousands of years. It comprehensively depicts the natural environment, resource endowments, disaster distribution, and the achievements in nature utilization and conservation across China, thereby providing a scientific basis for resource assessment, ecological conservation, disaster prevention, and socioeconomic planning. The compilation embodies multiple innovations: it extends and updates basic scientific data in both spatial and temporal dimensions; it highlights sustainable development concerns by devoting about 40% of its content to resources, disasters, and nature protection; it substantially expands plant and animal maps reflecting biodiversity research; it introduces new topics such as lithospheric dynamics, paleogeography, and global-change response; and it pioneers a fully digital workflow for the design, compilation, and automatic plate-making of a large-format national atlas, reaching an internationally advanced level in the late 1990s. The atlas has been acclaimed by international scholars as one of the finest national atlases published in recent decades, and its compilation marks an epoch-making event in China’s scientific and technological life. Future work will establish a national physical atlas information system and publish an electronic edition incorporating dynamic, 3D, and analytical capabilities, contributing further to the Digital China initiative.