Armenia亚美尼亚

This article is an academic review by Witold Kusiński of the Atlas of the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic (Yerevan–Moscow, 1961). It outlines the expansion of complex cartographic publishing in the USSR and the principles adopted at a 1961 Moscow University conference, then introduces the atlas produced by a multidisciplinary team led by Academician A. B. Bagdasarian. The atlas consists of six parts: preface, introductory section, natural conditions, population, economy, and history. The review examines its contents in detail. Natural-condition maps cover geology, seismic-tectonics, engineering geology, climate (after Köppen), hydrology, soils, vegetation, fauna, physical-geographical regions, and energy resources. Population maps show an almost homogeneous ethnic structure (Armenians 88%), high natural increase, uneven vertical distribution, urbanization, and Armenian dispersal/repatriation. Economic maps occupy about 35% of the atlas, with agriculture predominant; however, industry maps are criticized for lacking clear criteria for center size and industrial structure, while some agricultural maps show only deviations from republic averages. The atlas also includes synthetic agricultural specialization and complex economic maps with production linkages, plus historical maps. The reviewer concludes that, despite weaknesses especially in the economic-geographic section, the atlas is a logically coherent, graphically excellent, and rich source of knowledge about Armenia, and a worthy model of a national atlas.

Вольф, М. Б.; Мурзаев, Э. М.

This paper presents a critical review of the Atlas of the Armenian SSR, a comprehensive geographic atlas compiled by a large team of scholars under the editorial leadership of Prof. A. B. Bagdasaryan. The atlas, comprising 96 map pages, is recognized as an exemplary collaborative work that successfully integrates physical and economic geography. The review highlights the atlas’s strengths: a well-designed section on natural conditions that serves as a physical background for economic maps, detailed economic maps covering industry, agriculture, and transport, and notably, population maps that vividly depict the repatriation of Armenians and the relationship between settlement and altitude. However, the review identifies several methodological and practical shortcomings. Key deficiencies include the lack of transparent indicators underlying classifications on many thematic maps, leading to ambiguous interpretations; excessive generalization on the agricultural specialization map, which uses administrative districts rather than finer territorial units (e.g., collective farms), thereby reducing analytical granularity; inconsistent characterization of agricultural zones across different map sheets; missing essential reference maps, such as a detailed place-name index map; and improper application of choropleth methods, such as mapping absolute values instead of relative indices and depicting investment percentages as if they were relative data. Additional issues involve poor coordination between maps, inaccurate symbolization of forest industries, and cartographic design flaws that cause visual isolation of economic regions. Despite these weaknesses, the atlas is positively assessed as a valuable contribution to complex geographic cartography, and the review emphasizes the importance of learning from these shortcomings for the creation of similar atlases for other regions.

C. J. F. Dowsett

This is an academic review of the Atlas of the Armenian S.S.R. (1961), compiled by the Armenian Academy of Sciences. Covering the republic's territory of about 29,800 square kilometres and population of 1,893,000, the atlas comprises over one hundred maps in four sections: physical, demographic, economic, and historical. The reviewer praises its comprehensiveness and technical quality, particularly noting that the historical maps span the whole of Armenian history from Urartu to the Soviet period and serve as a useful commentary on classical texts such as those of Xenophon and Strabo. Criticisms include the relatively small map scales and the omission of the Nakhichevan ASSR, an essential part of historical Armenia. Overall, the atlas is deemed a valuable reference for all students of Armenia.

З. И. Мартынова; А. А. Минц

This paper reviews the 1961 Atlas of the Armenian SSR, a comprehensive national atlas published for the 40th anniversary of the republic. The atlas includes sections on natural conditions, population, culture, economy, and history, containing 77 physical-geographic maps, 50 climatic and phenological maps, 14 population and cultural maps, 66 economic maps, and 17 historical maps. A variety of cartographic techniques are employed, including hypsometric tinting combined with hill shading, as well as geological, engineering-geological, hydrogeological, soil, vegetation, and zoogeographical maps. The reviewer both praises the atlas for its innovative synthetic maps and combined methods, and criticizes certain shortcomings such as insufficient explanatory detail in legends and regionalization units. The atlas is regarded as a significant step forward in Soviet national atlas cartography. The latter part briefly discusses the application of the dot method for mapping agricultural sectors, distinguishing dots representing absolute values and percentages, and citing examples from atlases of Moscow Oblast, the BSSR, and Soviet agriculture.

Г. Н. Саркисян

This article provides a review and introduction to the Atlas of the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic. The atlas is a comprehensive, scientific-reference cartographic work designed for party, governmental, economic, and scientific workers, as well as for university students and the broader public studying the republic's nature, economy, culture, and the history of the Armenian people. As the second comprehensive national atlas after that of the Belarusian SSR, it is also the first relatively large-scale atlas of a country with highly complex mountainous terrain. The atlas was created by a young team from the Geography Sector of the Institute of Geological Sciences of the Armenian SSR Academy of Sciences, with the participation of various scientific institutions and prominent scholars. The chief scientific editor is Professor A. B. Baghdasaryan, Doctor of Geographical Sciences. The atlas is in album format (34.6 × 33.4 cm), comprising 120 pages, and was published simultaneously in Armenian and Russian. It is dedicated to the fortieth anniversary of the establishment of Soviet power in Armenia. The atlas contains 182 maps (143 main and 39 supplementary), covering a wide range of topics including natural conditions, geology, geomorphology, climate, hydrology, soils, vegetation, fauna, population, culture, industry, agriculture, economy, and history. Its distinctive features include broad structural coverage, practical orientation, integrated representation of phenomena, and innovative depiction of complexes. The atlas particularly emphasizes the practical value of climatic, agro-climatic, and phenological maps, as well as geological, seismotectonic, and engineering-geological maps. The economic section includes over 45 maps, illustrating the development and layout of industry, agriculture, and overall economy. The historical section presents key stages from the Urartu period to the Soviet era. Overall, the atlas represents a milestone in Armenian science and culture, embodying Lenin's methodological principles of comprehensiveness, unity, and historicism, and has been highly praised by Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences N. N. Baransky.

К. А. Салищев

This review examines two recent Soviet geographical works, focusing on the Atlas of the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic. Published in 1961 in Yerevan and Moscow by the Armenian Academy of Sciences and the Main Administration of Geodesy and Cartography, the atlas appeared in Russian and Armenian bilingual editions, comprising 119 pages with six sections: introductory, natural conditions, population and culture, economy, and history. The reviewer considers the atlas an ambitious comprehensive work: the physical-geographical section is particularly detailed and original, especially climatic, geomorphological, and hydrological maps; the economic and agricultural maps are also substantial, while historical maps highlight Armenia's ancient civilization. However, the population and culture section is comparatively weak, some maps are overloaded relative to their scale, and various legends and cartographic designs contain flaws. Overall, the atlas is judged a valuable national reference work. The review also briefly comments on the second edition of I. S. Shchukin's General Geomorphology, volume 1, noting its continuity with the geographical approach and its use of morphological complexes to organize geomorphological knowledge in light of recent scientific progress.

This paper examines the unique cartographic and editorial challenges encountered in producing the first Hebrew edition of the Atlas of Israel (1964), a comprehensive work comprising 102 sheets and 720 large-scale maps. Although modeled on other national atlases, the Israeli atlas diverged significantly due to three primary factors: the country's rapid demographic and cultural transformations, its distinctive geographical position and elongated shape, and the uneven reliability of its documentary base. The most influential factor was the dramatic 600% population increase over two generations, which drove extreme changes in agriculture, economy, communication, and services. To capture this dynamism, the atlas employs time-sequence map series for most topics rather than single static representations, and includes supplementary maps to update content. Geographically, Israel's location on the arid zone boundary creates sharp north-south contrasts, with highly diverse physical, human, and economic elements in the north versus a monotonous south, compounded by varied topography over small altitude ranges. These spatial characteristics demanded specialized cartographic solutions. Finally, the area's political history under Ottoman, British, and Israeli administrations within 50 years resulted in data that differ greatly in coverage and reliability. The paper details how these interrelated problems shaped the atlas's content, design, and production.

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

The geographical atlases of Armenia (1961), Azerbaijan (1963), and Georgia (1964) were published in the respective national languages and Russian. The scales and formats vary by country: Armenia's atlas is in album form at 1:1,000,000/1:1,500,000, while the other two are in book form at 1:1,500,000/1:2,500,000. The content broadly follows the recommendations of the 1960 Moscow "National Atlas," supplemented with thematic maps reflecting local natural and socio-economic characteristics. Each of the three volumes includes introductory maps, natural conditions and resources, population, national economy, culture and health, and historical maps, comprising 143, 177, and 168 maps respectively, with natural conditions and resources maps accounting for 49%–57% of the total.

Salishchev, K. A.

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.)

Chatterjee, S. P.

This paper reports on the institutional framework and progress of national and regional atlas production in India. Two government bodies bear primary responsibility: the National Atlas Organization under the Ministry of Scientific Research & Cultural Affairs prepares the National Atlas of India, while the Office of the Registrar General under the Ministry of Home Affairs oversees regional census atlases. Additionally, the National Council of Applied Economic Research and the Indian Statistical Institute have contributed regional economic atlases, including an atlas of the resources of Mysore (1960) and an Economic Atlas of Madras State (1962). Since the Hindi preliminary edition of the National Atlas in 1957, the National Atlas Organization, with a staff of approximately 175, has been compiling the main English edition. Following the recommendations of the IGU Commission on National Atlases, the 300-map series covers population, physical, administrative, and transport themes. As of the review period, 16 maps had been printed, 55 were in press, and 75 were under compilation. Detailed village-level data are first plotted on one-inch maps and subsequently reduced for publication. Concurrently, regional census atlases are being developed by the Superintendents of Census Operations of various states, directed by the Registrar General. Compilation for Orissa, Bihar, and Rajasthan has reached an advanced stage, while maps for other states—except Mysore and West Bengal—are in various phases of compilation. Close cooperation between the National Atlas Organization and state census offices underpins the entire endeavor, ensuring methodological consistency and comprehensive spatial coverage of India’s demographic and physical landscape.

Salichtchev, K. A.

This paper examines the evolution and contemporary tendencies of regional integrated atlases through a comparative analysis of major publications from Germany, Austria, France, the United States, Canada, and the Soviet Union. The study employs a systematic content assessment, using a comparative table to quantify the thematic composition and balance of atlas sections—nature, population, economy, and culture—across nineteen historical and modern atlases. The analysis reveals that early German regional atlases, such as the Atlas of Pomerania, displayed progressive cartographic techniques alongside politically biased content. The post-war German Federal Republic's Planning Atlas series adopted a unified framework with a pronounced statistical-economic orientation but often neglected the synthesis of natural conditions and lacked internal map consistency. Austrian atlases, exemplified by those of Lower Austria and Salzburg, exhibit a strong local-studies tradition, featuring extensive historical, settlement, and cultural maps, yet they reveal weaknesses in demographic and socio-economic coverage and occasional cartographic shortcomings. More recent atlases from France, North America, and the Soviet Union show increasing practical applications for regional planning and resource management, yet the balance between analytical detail and geographic synthesis remains inconsistent. The paper concludes that regional atlases are increasingly oriented toward practical planning needs, but their development requires greater emphasis on interdisciplinary integration, improved comparability of data across maps, and a more systematic incorporation of natural conditions to support comprehensive territorial analysis.

D. P. Bickmore; M. A. Shaw

This paper examines ten subjects omitted from the Atlas of Britain, a 200-page cartographic work covering 217 topics. Despite claiming comprehensiveness, the authors acknowledge that during ten years of planning, many additional topics were investigated through source examination and experimental mapping but ultimately excluded. The omitted subjects discussed include biological distributions, atmospheric pollution, gravity surveys, blood groups, educational facilities, hospitals, unemployment, industrial sectors beyond the 80 included, urban land use, and ecclesiastical and judicial boundaries. The article serves two constructive purposes: first, to highlight deficiencies in existing data collection regarding Britain's material resources; and second, to argue against redundant mapping of subjects whose geographical patterns merely duplicate those already illustrated by more fundamental, included topics. The authors stress the growing demand for comprehensive national atlases while cautioning against unrealistic cartographic expectations.

P. Pronk

This article describes the creation and organization of the National Atlas of the Netherlands. A preparatory commission was set up in 1932, and a joint foundation was established in 1951, leading to publication in 1963. The editorial system consists of a Board of Trustees, a seven-member Editorial Committee, seventeen Sub-Commissions, and a cartographic Bureau. About ten sheets appear annually, totaling 109, with Dutch and English texts. The main scale is 1:600,000, not the recommended 1:500,000, to keep the atlas manageable. Content follows international recommendations with local adjustments.

A. Götz

This paper reviews two regional atlases of the Caucasus published in the Soviet era: the Atlas of the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic (1961) and the Atlas of the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic (1963). It notes that both atlases represent a significant advance over earlier Soviet regional atlases in terms of content breadth and cartographic expression, particularly in their treatment of physical geography (e.g., engineering geology, mineral springs, agro-climatic zones) and economic geography (e.g., crop structure, irrigated areas, freight transport intensity). The review also identifies shortcomings, including the general absence of population geography and demographic maps, and the lack of quantitative explanations and dating on some economic maps. Overall, the atlases serve as valuable resources both for studying the geographical conditions of the two Transcaucasian republics and for methodological reference in regional atlas compilation.