Armenia

З. И. Мартынова; А. А. Минц

This article reviews the academic value and cartographic methods of the Atlas of the Armenian SSR, and explores the application of the dot method in agricultural mapping. It points out that the atlas excels in original content and representational techniques, with statistical maps (e.g., cartograms and cartodiagrams) playing a primarily auxiliary role. Agricultural maps are combined with thematic maps of physical-geographical regionalization and agricultural specialization, reflecting a comprehensive scientific approach. The author considers the atlas an outstanding achievement of Soviet cartography with significant methodological value. Furthermore, using the experience of compiling the Atlas of Agriculture of the USSR as an example, the article analyzes two types of dot methods: one where a dot represents an absolute value (e.g., 5,000 hectares), allowing total quantities to be derived by summing dots; and another where a dot represents a percentage of the total indicator (e.g., 0.1% of total sown area), used to show structural distribution. The dot method differs from the symbol method in that it assigns a specific weight to each dot, and it can be applied to represent multiple indicators of different qualitative content on a single map.

Г. Н. Саркисян

This article provides a comprehensive review of the Atlas of the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic, published in 1961. As the second comprehensive national atlas of the USSR and the first medium-scale atlas of a country with highly complex mountainous terrain, it was compiled by the geography sector of the Institute of Geological Sciences of the Armenian Academy of Sciences in collaboration with numerous research institutions, under the chief editorship of Prof. A. B. Baghdasaryan. Published bilingually in Armenian and Russian, the atlas comprises 120 pages and 182 maps (143 principal and 39 supplementary), organized into sections on natural conditions, population, economy, and history, dedicated to the 40th anniversary of Soviet power in Armenia. The article highlights several distinctive features: (1) broad structural coverage encompassing all relevant themes; (2) strong practical orientation, introducing for the first time in comprehensive atlases such maps as phenological, agro-climatic, seismic-tectonic, engineering-geological, mudflow, and energy resource (hydro, solar, wind) maps; (3) complex mapping of phenomena, combining multiple interrelated aspects on single maps, e.g., the transport map showing railways, highways, air routes, and freight intensity simultaneously; (4) pioneering depiction of integral territorial-production complexes, exemplified by the "Sevan-Razdan Hydropower Complex" map; (5) extensive use of cross-sections, diagrams, tables, and explanatory texts enriching the main maps; (6) inclusion of generalizing maps facilitating holistic understanding; (7) reflection of the historical fate of the Armenian people through historical and population distribution maps, particularly illustrating the demographic consequences of the 1915 genocide; (8) relatively large map scales, setting a precedent for future large-scale atlases of Soviet republics. The article further analyzes each section, noting that agricultural maps effectively demonstrate the influence of vertical zonation on farming systems, with irrigated land expanding from 97,000 hectares in 1913 to 225,000 hectares by 1959. The review concludes by praising the high printing quality of the Minsk Cartographic Factory and characterizes the atlas as a landmark in Armenian scientific culture, embodying Lenin's methodological directives for creating a truly Soviet atlas.

К. А. Салищев

This article presents two book reviews from the 1962 issue of the Moscow University Bulletin. The first reviews the Atlas of the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic (Yerevan—Moscow, 1961), published jointly by the Armenian Academy of Sciences and the Main Administration of Geodesy and Cartography. The atlas comprises six sections and 98 pages of maps covering natural conditions, population, economy, and history. The reviewer considers it a work of both scientific-reference and mass-distribution value, praising its physical-geographic maps as particularly strong, while noting gaps in thematic coverage, occasional mismatches between map scale and content load, and certain shortcomings in legends. The second review assesses I. S. Shchukin's General Geomorphology, Vol. 1 (Moscow University Press, 1960), a thoroughly revised second edition of the 1936 classic. The work organizes material around morphological complexes and maintains the author's conception of geomorphology as a branch of physical geography treating relief as a key landscape element, reflecting significant advances in Soviet geomorphology over the preceding 24 years.

М. Б. Вольф; Э. М. Мурзаев

This is an academic review of the Comprehensive Atlas of the Armenian SSR (1961), a collaborative work by about a hundred scholars comprising 96 pages of maps covering natural conditions, population, culture, and economy. The review praises the atlas for its integrated approach, the coordination between physical and economic maps, and the politically and historically insightful population maps. However, it also identifies methodological shortcomings, including the lack of explicit indicators for agricultural specialization zones, missing data years on statistical diagrams, overly coarse territorial units on some maps, inconsistencies between related maps, and improper cartographic techniques in certain cases. Despite these flaws, the reviewer concludes that the atlas serves as a model for regional comprehensive mapping and offers valuable lessons for similar projects in other Soviet republics.

Witold Kusiński

This is an academic review of the 1961 Atlas of the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic. Compiled by a team of dozens of scholars led by the Institute of Geography of the Armenian Academy of Sciences, the atlas is a product of the Soviet program of comprehensive republican atlases. The review details the atlas's six-part structure, covering natural conditions, population, economy, and history, and offers a critical assessment. The author finds the physical geography sections, particularly climatology, hydrology, and geology, to be of high quality, but criticizes the economic maps for insufficient precision and unclear classification criteria. Overall, the atlas is deemed a valuable source of knowledge about Armenia and a commendable example of a national atlas.

C. J. F. Dowsett

This is an academic review of the Atlas of the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic (1961, Erevan–Moscow), compiled by a team of geographers under the Armenian Academy of Sciences. Covering an area of 29,800 square kilometers with about one hundred maps, the atlas is divided into four sections: physical, demographic, economic, and historical. The review praises its comprehensive content and technical quality, particularly the historical maps spanning from Urartu to the Soviet period, and the economic and demographic maps illustrating Armenia's rapid transformation from an agrarian society to an industrialized state. It also criticizes the small scale of some maps and the omission of the Nakhichevan region, while affirming the atlas's significant value for students of Armenian history, geography, and culture.

Sándor Láng

Jerzy Kondracki

This paper reviews the progress of the National Atlas of Poland and regional atlases. By the end of 1963, the Institute of Geography of the Polish Academy of Sciences had completed nine new plates for the physical geography section, covering Quaternary basement structure, hydrography, lakes, soils, snowfall, and temperatures, totaling 35 plates ready for reproduction. However, publication has been delayed, with the first plates unlikely to appear before 1965. The article also introduces two regional atlases: the Opole Voivodeship Atlas (16 plates on physical, demographic, and economic themes) and the Białystok Voivodeship Atlas (planned 78 plates, partly due by mid-1964). Finally, it mentions the second edition of the international bibliography of national and regional atlases prepared for the London Congress.

O. Tulippe

At the UGI Commission on National Atlases plenary meeting in Budapest, 7–11 September 1962, O. Tulippe presented a survey intended to standardize legends for major population maps. Using materials exchanged through Belgium’s National Geography Committee, it classified 19 types of demographic and workforce maps and compared their titles, dates, representation methods, categories, scales, territorial bases, statistical sources, and authorship. A broader international survey was then launched, receiving responses from fifteen countries.

Athos D. Grazzini

This paper examines the editorial challenges encountered in producing the 115 map pages of the National Geographic Society's first World Atlas. The objective was to create an atlas serving laymen, scholars, students, travelers, and businessmen alike. Editorial work centered on evaluating and selecting source materials to establish an accurate base map, onto which political, physical, historical, and scientific data were integrated. Regarding name compilation, the Society has long adopted native spellings for countries using the Roman alphabet, while retaining conventional or anglicized forms for well-known names. For other nations, such as China, the Soviet Union, and various Arab states, transliteration follows systems developed by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names and the British Permanent Committee on Geographic Names. Given the rapidly changing global landscape, international boundaries were continuously checked and revised to reflect the de facto situation at the time of printing, with territorial claims indicated through red annotations. The Atlas differs markedly from other world atlases in content and methodology, rendering its editorial problems particularly intricate.

A. F. Aslanikashvili; A. B. Baghdasaryan; S. G. Rustamov

This paper reviews the geographical atlases of the three Transcaucasian republics—Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia—published in the early 1960s. It notes that all three atlases were issued in large editions in both the respective national languages and Russian, with their formats, bindings, and main map scales (1:1,000,000 and 1:1,500,000 for Armenia; 1:1,500,000 and 1:2,500,000 for Azerbaijan and Georgia) determined by the size and configuration of each republic. The content generally follows the recommendations of the 1960 Moscow publication 'National Atlases,' yet each atlas incorporates thematic maps reflecting the specific natural and socio-economic conditions of its republic. By tabulating the number and percentage of maps devoted to natural conditions, population, national economy, culture and public health, and history, the paper systematically compares the structure and content of the three atlases.

K. A. Salishchev

The author reviews work on atlases of Soviet republics and oblasts published in 1961–64, containing maps on physical geography, population, economy and culture. He finds that these atlases suffer from a lack of practical purposefulness and inadequate coordination. These weaknesses are to be remedied in a new coordinated project of natural-resource atlases of the major republics and economic regions of the USSR initiated in 1963.

T. W. Plumb

This paper reviews the progress of Australia's national atlas between 1960 and 1964. The first series of the Atlas of Australian Resources was completed in 1960, and work on the second series began in 1961, aiming to progressively replace the original thirty map-sheets. Most new sheets are revisions, while some address new topics, integrated with overall atlas revision to maintain a concise and balanced reference work. The second series retains the format, general style, and basic scale (1:6,000,000), but adopts a more suitable projection, revises the base map, designs special layouts for topics requiring larger scales, and uses the reverse of sheets for supplementary maps and references, while refining data, representation methods, and drawing and reproduction techniques. Additionally, regional atlases for Tasmania (fourth edition), New South Wales (first edition), and the Fitzroy Region of central Queensland have commenced, prepared by state governments and the Federal Department of National Development, respectively.

K. A. Salichtchev

This article surveys the historical evolution, major types, methodological characteristics, and prospective development of regional atlases. It traces their development from early works such as the Atlas of Asiatic Russia to the integrated atlases produced in the Soviet Union, Germany, Western Europe, and North America during and after the 1930s. Their emergence is shown to have been driven by practical needs, including migration and settlement, national economic planning, administrative reorganization, resource development, industrial location, transportation planning, and regional governance. By comparing representative multipurpose and specialized atlases country by country, the author evaluates their treatment of natural conditions and resources, population, economy, culture, history, transport, and external relations, as well as their scales, thematic organization, cartographic techniques, and intended users. The discussion recognizes several achievements, including historical representation of changing phenomena, effective graphic methods, attention to social and economic structures, and the adaptation of content to specific regional problems. It also identifies recurring weaknesses: unbalanced thematic coverage, inadequate treatment of nature or industry, politically biased interpretation, discrepancies between scale and detail, and the absence of synthetic maps or maps showing external economic relationships. The article argues that a regional atlas must have a clear practical orientation, but that practical usefulness requires rather than excludes a rigorous scientific-geographical foundation. An atlas should not merely compile facts or function as a directory for commercial users; it should reveal connections, interdependencies, historical development, contradictions, dynamics, and latent possibilities among mapped phenomena. Such an approach can support regional planning, rational resource use, environmental transformation, and the preparation of increasingly important forecast maps. Explanatory texts, graphs, and statistical summaries are therefore treated as integral components that clarify individual maps, facilitate their combined interpretation, and strengthen both scientific analysis and practical application. As demand grows for school, local-study, popular-reference, scientific-reference, and special-purpose atlases, diversity will remain necessary because atlas design must reflect national economic structures and local geographical characteristics. Nevertheless, the author recommends national-level standardization for each atlas type so that works can be compared and jointly analyzed, particularly through consistent legends for principal maps. Multipurpose regional atlases should complement national atlases by presenting territories at larger scales and in greater detail while emphasizing distinctive local features. They may add region-specific subjects, omit nationally recommended themes that are locally irrelevant, and retain some maps similar to those in national atlases when necessary for independent and convenient use. Finally, international geographical organizations can promote improvement through scholarly debate, critical reviews, exchanges of experience, bibliographies, exhibitions, and methodological coordination.

D. P. Bickmore; M. A. Shaw

This paper examines ten subjects omitted from The Atlas of Britain, including biological distributions, atmospheric pollution, gravity surveys, blood groups, educational facilities, hospitals, unemployment, industry, urban land use, and ecclesiastical and judicial boundaries. Despite the atlas's 217 topics, the authors argue its claim to comprehensiveness is limited. The study aims to highlight deficiencies in data collection and caution against redundant mapping, where subjects merely reflect existing geographical patterns. Through this critical review, the authors advocate for more selective topic choices to enhance the atlas's utility in scientific and economic analyses.

P. Pronk

The National Atlas of the Netherlands, initiated in 1932, was formally established in 1951 through a foundation jointly set up by the Ministry of Education, the Royal Netherlands Geographical Society, and the Society for Economic and Social Geography, with publication commencing in November 1963. The organizational structure includes a Board of Trustees, an Editorial Committee, 17 sub-commissions, and a Bureau. Approximately 10 sheets are published annually, culminating in a complete atlas of 109 sheets, with main maps at a scale of 1:600,000 and explanatory texts in Dutch and English on the reverse. The content generally aligns with I.G.U. recommendations, adapted to local conditions.

F. Vázquez Maure

In countries where the cartographic base is imprecise and geographical and statistical studies are limited, the task of producing a national atlas comparable to those of other nations faces great difficulties. However, there is always a need for a minimum of geographical data for all countries. This paper therefore proposes a relatively feasible abbreviated atlas, comprising fourteen plates, which are examined in detail. Except for climatology and agricultural production plates, which would include several maps, the whole country would be represented on a single map at the largest possible scale, grouping data with different colors. For instance, a hydrography map would integrate the river network, basins, reservoirs, irrigation zones, and flood-prone areas; an energy map would concentrate hydroelectric and thermal plants, coal mines, oil fields, power lines, and petroleum pipelines, with the most appropriate hierarchy. All plates are designed to include only data that governments or geographical centers can easily obtain.

A. Götz

This paper reviews four regional atlases published in the Soviet Union: those of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Irkutsk Oblast, and Kustanay Oblast. It analyzes their content structure, cartographic methods, strengths, and weaknesses. Key findings include: the atlases are particularly detailed in physical geography, featuring innovative maps such as engineering-geological, structural-tectonic zoning, mineral springs, agro-climatic zones, and synoptic processes; in the economic geography sections, agricultural maps are the most extensive, and for the first time in Soviet atlases, maps of freight transport intensity for both railways and highways appear. A common shortcoming remains the lack of population geography and demographic maps. The review concludes that these atlases represent significant progress over earlier Soviet regional atlases and serve as valuable resources for studying the geographic conditions of the Transcaucasian republics and the methodology of regional atlas compilation.