Czechoslovakia捷克斯洛伐克

R. Turćin

This article introduces the Atlas of the Czechoslovak Republic, a geographic-statistical publication initiated by the Czech Academy of Sciences and Arts. Compiled by over 60 specialists under an editorial board, the atlas comprises 54 sheets (45×88 cm) containing 442 maps, with main maps at 1:1,250,000 scale. Its content covers physical geography, demography, agriculture, industry, transport, trade, education, and culture. The article highlights selected map sheets, such as hypsometric, geological, climatic, soil, and economic maps, praising their detailed and well-designed presentation. It concludes that the atlas surpasses previous similar works in scope, processing, and print quality, serving as an indispensable reference for geographical, economic, and sociological research and as a major representative scientific work of Czechoslovakia.

V. Svambera

After World War I, the newly created Czechoslovakia urgently needed a national atlas. Compiled by universities and state institutions, the Atlas contained over 400 maps on 54 sheets, covering physical geography, climate, population, agriculture, industry, commerce, transport, and culture. The editors overcame major difficulties caused by the divergent administrative and statistical systems of the former Austro-Hungarian territories. Sponsored by the Czech Academy of Sciences and published by Orbis, it was issued in fascicles from October 1931 and completed by the end of 1932, priced at about 600 francs. Notably, its graphic statistical methods served to reveal true geographic characteristics, with substantial ideas contributed by Professor Laska.

Fr. Říkovský

This review article critically evaluates the Atlas of the Czechoslovak Republic (1935), a large cartographic work containing 504 maps and cartograms by 55 authors. It describes the atlas's structure: physical, demographic, economic, and cultural maps. The review praises the technical execution and statistical innovation, especially the use of frequency curves and the 'statistical norm' in constructing cartograms. However, it criticizes the atlas's imbalance: economic and demographic topics dominate (49% and 25.8% of maps respectively), while physical geography and cultural synthesis are neglected. The author notes that only 6% of maps were proposed by geographers, and no synthetic geographic map is included. The atlas is judged a valuable statistical and economic reference but a missed opportunity for Czech geography. A brief closing note mentions Václav Hrubý's posthumous work on Czech diplomatics.

This article reviews the Atlas of the Czechoslovak Republic, published by the Czech Academy of Sciences in 1935. The atlas contains 55 map sheets with accompanying texts in Czech, French, German, or English. It covers physical geography, population, agriculture, mining, industry, transport, trade, education, and other topics, aiming to show interrelations between geographic and economic phenomena. Compiled over fifteen years using statistical-geographical methods, it relies on the latest data available down to the smallest administrative units. Although some data are not fully contemporary, the atlas provides an authoritative overview of the country and serves as an important document for international representation.

V. Švambera

This article is a rebuttal by the editorial board of the Atlas of the Czechoslovak Republic to Prof. František Říkovský's critical review, which characterized the atlas as "a lost opportunity for Czechoslovak geography." The author argues that the atlas's flaws do not stem from editorial incompetence but from the concrete scientific, administrative, and financial constraints existing in 1928, when the final program had to be fixed (initially 72 sheets, reduced to 55). The article systematically addresses criticisms: the dominance of statisticians, absence of synthetic and genetic maps, lack of regional/cultural/geopolitical maps, and insufficient involvement of geographers. It explains that many proposed maps could not be produced because the underlying research was immature, data were not yet available (e.g., from the 1930 census), and adding such maps would have delayed publication and raised costs. It also points out that comparable national atlases (Finnish and Polish) lacked synthetic maps, and that several criticized maps, e.g., isochore and population-density maps, are actually geographic in nature. The article defends the inclusion of a chapter on the constitution as appropriate for a state-promotional publication and notes that administrative divisions are visible in cartograms. The author concludes that the atlas was not a lost opportunity but a pioneering work reflecting the level of interwar Czech(oslovak) geography, and that a second edition could incorporate suggestions from critics while doing justice to the original editors' and geographers' labor.

H. Hassinger

This review evaluates the Atlas of the Czechoslovak Republic (1935), published by the Czech Academy. The atlas offers a comprehensive geographic-statistical survey with 55 maps, covering physical geography, population, economy, transport, and culture. The reviewer acknowledges its valuable, objective treatment of relief, climate, and plant geography, but criticizes the misleading representation of nationalities, which obscures non-Czech areas by using Czech colors as base. He also notes the lack of historical maps showing German settlement and the weak transport section. Overall, the atlas remains an indispensable source.

This review examines six representative European atlases from the 1930s: the international edition of Stieler's Atlas, the Swedish Världsatlas, the Atlas de France, the Atlas of Czechoslovakia, and the regional atlases of Lower Saxony and Pomerania. It highlights the shift toward specialized national and regional atlases driven by national consciousness and economic planning. The author evaluates cartographic techniques, including relief representation, dot and areal methods, and inset maps. While praising the scholarship and technical quality, the review criticizes inconsistent treatment of cities and the misleading use of areal tints for total quantities. It concludes that these atlases offer valuable models for distribution mapping, though methods must be adapted to different geographic contexts.

Hans Raupach

This review assesses the Atlas of the Czechoslovak Republic (Prague, 1935), a comprehensive cartographic work praised for its physical, economic, and demographic maps. However, the ethnic and population maps reveal a nationalist bias: Czechs are presented as a unitary nation across the whole state, while German and other minorities are marginalized. The reviewer notes the propagandistic use of color and classification, and urges German scholarship to critically analyze and supplement the atlas with maps addressing historical and social questions. The atlas reflects Czech political dynamics but must be read with caution.

This article introduces the background, publication details, and content structure of the 'Great Atlas of Czechoslovakia,' published in 1936. Compiled under the auspices of the Czechoslovak Ministry of Foreign Affairs and executed by the Bohemian Academy of Sciences and Arts, the atlas was edited by Professor Laska of Charles University. It comprises 220 pages, including 55 double-page plates, with explanatory texts in Czech, French, and English. The content spans 13 thematic sections, such as foreign lands, history, topography, geology, climate, ethnicity, population, agriculture, industry, transportation, commerce, and culture. Based largely on statistical data, the maps effectively depict collective structures, with harmonious coloring and notable excellence in population and geological maps.

Stefan Zmuda

This article examines the development, characteristics, and significance of national atlases against the backdrop of the late 19th and 20th centuries. It identifies four key factors driving the rapid advancement of cartography: colonial economic expansion, national liberation movements, improvements in cartographic techniques, and economic transformations. Among various cartographic products, national atlases—comprehensive monographic atlases covering a single country—emerged as a leading genre. The author provides detailed accounts of national atlas projects in several countries, including France, Sweden, Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union, and Scotland, discussing their structure, scales, organization, and publication processes. Special attention is given to the Atlas de France, which took about 25 years to complete with contributions from leading French specialists, and to the Swedish national atlas with its serial publication format. The article then focuses on Poland, reviewing the compilation of the Atlas Polski (Atlas of Poland) and the Atlas Powszechny (General Atlas). The Polish national atlas project, initially planned to cover physical, human, and economic geography, was discontinued after only four fascicles were published between 1953 and 1956. The author attributes this failure to a lack of external cooperation and support, which seriously damaged the prestige of Polish cartography. With the approaching millennium anniversary of Poland, the author urges the resumption of work on the Atlas Polski, proposing that it should become a comprehensive geographic-synthetic monograph incorporating findings from history, archaeology, ethnography, and linguistics. Such an atlas would serve as an essential reference for education, research, and publicizing national achievements. The article concludes that national atlases represent the best informational medium about a country, and compiling a new Atlas of Poland should be a paramount task for Polish cartography in the near future.

Miroslav Blažek

This article addresses key problems in designing industrial maps for national atlases, drawing on the preparation of the new National Atlas of Czechoslovakia, scheduled for publication around 1965 as a replacement for the obsolete 1935 edition. The atlas will contain about 80 plates and some 200 maps covering physical geography, population, production, living standards, and regional characteristics. The author identifies four major challenges in compiling industrial maps: establishing a basic territorial network based on geographic units of population and production concentration rather than administrative divisions; achieving an internationally comparable yet simple classification of industries; selecting quantitative indices such as employment and physical output for measuring industrial capacity; and representing complex economic-geographic relationships, which are partially addressed through supplementary diagrams and contextual base layers. The article concludes that adopting the simplest feasible methods and unified principles can enhance the international comparability of national atlases and contribute to peaceful international cooperation through geographic scholarship.

Radó Sándor

This report describes the planned second edition of the National Atlas of Czechoslovakia, initiated by the Geographical Committee of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences. The atlas will contain 60–65 map sheets in four sections: physical geography, political and population geography, economic and transport geography, and typical landscape regions. It will employ new cartographic methods, with main maps at 1:1,000,000 scale and supplementary maps at smaller scales. A separate text volume and photo atlas are planned, followed by a geographical monograph of Czechoslovakia.

Antonín Götz

This article presents the fundamental compilation and preparatory processes involved in the National Atlas of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. The atlas project originated from the 1957 Congress of the Czechoslovak Geographical Society, where it was designated as one of the primary tasks of Czechoslovak geography. Compared with the pre-war Atlas of the Czechoslovak Republic (1935), the involvement of geographers in the authorial team and editorial work was significantly enhanced. The article also underscores the international context: in 1956, the International Geographical Union (IGU) decided at its Rio de Janeiro Congress to establish a Commission on National Atlases, after which the compilation of national atlases became a core task of world geography. The article provides a detailed description of the atlas's technical design. The unfolded sheet size is 86 cm × 50 cm, allowing the entire country to be presented on a single page at a basic scale of 1:1,000,000; the map image itself measures 80 cm × 43 cm. Bound sheets are approximately 47 cm × 52 cm. Each map is accompanied on its reverse by explanatory text, as well as Russian and English summaries and legends. The atlas employs an equal-area conic projection with standard parallels at 49°30′ N, and the scale sequence is 1:1,000,000, 1:2,000,000, 1:3,000,000, 1:4,000,000, 1:5,000,000, and 1:6,000,000. The maximum linear distortion is only 0.4‰, and angular distortion is 3′, rendering the distortions negligible. The atlas's content is divided into five main sections according to the recommendations of the IGU Commission: Introduction (4 sheets), Natural Environment (19 sheets), Population and Settlements (7 sheets), National Economy (22 sheets, of which 9 cover industry, 8 agriculture, and 5 transport and foreign trade), and Living Standards (6 sheets). A comparison with major foreign national atlases reveals that the Czechoslovak atlas ranks third in total cartographic area, following the Canadian and Soviet atlases. The article also mentions specific cartographic methods, such as maps drawn by local communities (approximately 12,000 units), choropleth diagrams by districts illustrating urban-rural differences, and the dot method used in agriculture. Finally, the article lists the names, contents, and scales of all 58 maps, accompanied by references. The atlas reflects the collaboration of numerous institutions, including the Institute of Geography of the Academy of Sciences, the Central Administration of Geodesy and Cartography, and university geography departments. It represents not only a significant achievement of Czechoslovak geography but also an important contribution to world cartography.

Josef Huršky

This paper examines the methods and design issues involved in compiling maps of domestic trade, particularly retail trade, for the National Atlas of Czechoslovakia. The author notes that, unlike most national atlases, the Czechoslovak National Atlas devoted considerable attention to the retail trade network, owing to the fact that state economic control in a socialist country could provide reliable statistical data, especially on retail turnover. In the final version of the atlas (58 plates, 433 maps), domestic trade was placed on Plate 53 in Part V, "Standard of Living," comprising one main map at a scale of 1:1,000,000 (reflecting retail trade in towns with populations over 2,000), three subsidiary maps at 1:4,000,000 (representing catering services, factory canteens, and self-service shops, respectively), and two subsidiary maps at 1:6,000,000 (showing retail turnover and monetary income by district), accompanied by several statistical diagrams. The author discusses in detail the main difficulties encountered during compilation. The 1960 administrative reform reduced the original 103 districts to about 50, with their areas roughly doubling, so that district averages often masked internal geographical differences; meanwhile, the former 412 old judicial districts, which would have better approximated community-scale units, ceased to exist in the administrative division. Since statistical data covered only some rural communities, and because cartographic symbols could not adequately express complex urban characteristics within the constraints of scale, the plan to map every community individually had to be abandoned. The author proposes a classification of settlements, dividing towns into cities and urban-type communities with populations over 4,000, and smaller towns and rural communities with populations over 2,000; the main map thus contains nearly 1,000 symbols, including 221 cities and an additional 80 larger symbols. Since the 1961 census covered only state trade and lacked cooperative trade data, supplementary surveys were also required. Regarding the selection of indicators, the author focuses primarily on turnover (in absolute values and per capita) as the leading indicator, followed by employment figures, and then the ratio between foodstuffs and industrial goods; this information is encoded through the area of symbols, sector divisions, and color. The concluding section further explores several optimization proposals, such as using a second map at 1:1,000,000 to represent communities with supply surpluses or deficits, changing the catering and factory canteen subsidiary maps to a scale of 1:2,000,000 so that they could be shown by city rather than by entire administrative district, and replacing maps of mobile sales routes and school canteens with diagrams. The author points out that, because ten central retail organizations not under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Domestic Trade (such as petrol stations, newsstands, cultural goods stores, bookshops, coal shops, and pharmacies) were excluded, the map content has an omission of approximately 9%; therefore, employment figures and turnover should be increased by about 10% when interpreting the results. Finally, the author concludes that the solution represents a compromise between analytical maps and basic choropleth statistical maps, and expresses the hope that the domestic trade maps in the National Atlas of the German Democratic Republic may be further improved.

W. Stams

This paper reviews the newly published national atlas of Czechoslovakia. The atlas comprises 58 map sheets containing approximately 440 individual maps at various scales, accompanied by trilingual explanatory texts in Czech, English, and Russian. It largely follows the established principles for compiling national atlases and provides a comprehensive picture of the country's regional structure, with a strong emphasis on the processing of statistical data. The reviewer highlights that combining large-scale inset maps with small-scale chorographic overviews represents a significant way to enhance the expressive power of national atlases. The review further evaluates the cartographic design and content of specific thematic maps, including geological, geomorphological, climatic, population, and economic maps, noting both their strengths and shortcomings. The atlas is regarded as a cultural achievement of high standing that can effectively showcase the accomplishments of the socialist Czechoslovak state to the world.

Bernard Rouleau

This review article from the Annales de Géographie assesses a multilingual geographical vocabulary published under the Council of Europe and several recent national and regional atlases (North Carolina, Spain, Hungary, France, the Pacific Northwest, and Czechoslovakia). The reviewer examines each work's organization, thematic coverage, cartographic design, and practical usefulness. The vocabulary is welcomed as an aid to reading foreign-language maps and documents. Among the atlases, quality and innovation vary: some offer rich, accurate documentation; Bachi's Graphical Rational Patterns proposes a coding system for exact quantitative mapping; the Czechoslovak atlas stands out as a monumental national achievement. Together these works illustrate contemporary trends in cartography and geographic documentation.

This article reviews two national atlases of Czechoslovakia published in the 20th century. The 1935 edition adopted a single conic projection and flexible page layouts, systematically presenting physical, population, and economic features, with titles and legends in Czech/Slovak and French. The 1962–1966 revised edition, about 40 sheets at 1:1,000,000, is divided into natural conditions, human activities, and economic geography, with detailed explanatory notes. Both atlases are distinctive in projection design, content organization, and multilingual annotation, and systematically display the country's geographic and economic characteristics.