Netherlands

Werner Witt

This review examines the background, structure, and quality of the Dutch national atlas "Atlas van Nederland," commissioned by the Dutch Ministry of Education and published in installments since 1963. The atlas, planned to comprise 109 map sheets at a principal scale of 1:600,000, is organized into 17 major sections following a predominantly geographical framework, covering topography, geology, soil science, climate, hydrology, historical geography, settlement geography, population, and economy. The author notes that the 37 sheets published by 1966 demonstrate exceptionally high cartographic and printing standards, with particular praise for the soil and climate maps in both technical and aesthetic terms. However, certain shortcomings are identified, including over-simplified topographic base maps and inconvenient binding orientation. Overall, the atlas is judged to be of internationally outstanding quality, and the author looks forward to future installments, especially those dealing with economic sectors and spatial planning.

Werner Witt

This article comprises two book reviews. The first reviews nine newly published map sheets of the Atlas of the Netherlands (1967), covering topics such as monthly mean temperatures, frost periods, water management, prehistoric sites, educational levels, agricultural land use, farm types, industry, and foreign trade, while commenting on their cartographic methods, layout, and print quality. The second reviews Volumes II and III of Acta Cartographica, summarizing their collected papers on historical cartography, including ancient maps, Mercator, van Deventer's city plans, and the cartography of North American discoveries, and affirming their scholarly value.

Werner Witt

The National Atlas of the Netherlands, compiled by the Foundation for the Scientific Atlas of the Netherlands, was published in 13 installments between 1963 and 1977 by the State Printing and Publishing House in The Hague, completing after over 25 years of intensive work. The atlas comprises 98 double-page folded map sheets with Dutch and English explanatory texts, distinguished by its content and design, ranking among the world's leading national atlases. Its compilation was coordinated by an editorial committee, chaired by Prof. A. J. Pannekoek, overseeing 17 specialist commissions drawn from university institutes and government agencies. With a circulation exceeding 8,000 copies, it reflects broad appreciation. Due to the installment format, some maps were outdated upon completion, prompting supplementary maps for 1978–1980, covering topics such as North Sea resources, surface water salinization, drinking water supply, and demographic changes.

Werner Witt

This text comprises three book reviews. The first reviews the 1978 supplementary volume of the National Atlas of the Netherlands, containing five map sheets covering natural landscape planning, fertility changes, population age structure and religious affiliation, and degree of urbanization, maintaining the atlas's consistently high scholarly and cartographic standards. The second introduces Walter Sperling's 'Geographiedidaktische Quellenkunde', a bibliography of approximately 5,000 annotated entries with a substantial introduction and indices, serving as an essential reference for geography education. The third reviews Klaus Schmidt's 'Erdgeschichte' (History of the Earth), third edition, expanded by 48 pages since its 1972 first edition, with updated figures and content reflecting recent advances in geological research.

W. Stams

This is an abstract of two German-language academic book reviews. The first reviews subsequent installments of the Atlas of the Netherlands, focusing on thematic maps of transport, geology, hydrogeology, biogeography, and industry, and notes the atlas's diverse and stimulating cartographic methods. The second reviews the Quaternary geological map of the German Democratic Republic at 1:500,000 scale, which holds significant scientific value in its stratigraphic and lithological classification, though the reviewer also points out that its sparse geographic reference information limits practical use. Both reviews evaluate the maps' content, compilation methods, and academic significance from a professional perspective.

Werner Witt

This article is a German-language review of the Atlas of the Netherlands and an international cartographic journal literature survey. The review notes that the 1981 supplement to the atlas contains five new map sheets covering topographical changes since 1963 (including the new town of Almere in Southern Flevoland, the Lauwerszee, and the Delta Project), administrative boundary changes, schools, income and wealth conditions, and leisure recreation and tourism. This third supplement completes the 1963–1977 edition of the atlas, while a new edition differing significantly in form and content is already in preparation. The journal survey systematically presents recent papers from cartographic journals in Germany, France, the UK, the USSR, Canada, Japan, and New Zealand, covering topics such as surveying technology, digital cartography, map classification, land-use mapping, and computer-assisted cartography, reflecting the development trends and frontiers of international cartography in the early 1980s.

Marc de Smidt

Twenty volumes of a new Atlas of the Netherlands, for which a problem-oriented approach is chosen, are published. In this article the chairman of the editorial committee deals with the scope and se...

Nico J. Bakker; Corné P. J. M. van Elzakker; Ferjan Ormeling

Discussions are taking place in many countries on whether or not a (new) national atlas should be published, and in what form. This article provides general information on the function, content, requirements, structure and format of national atlases, and also on their role in national development. Examples are drawn from the production of the national atlas of The Netherlands. A national atlas has been defined by Salishchev as a basic, multi-subject geographic atlas of a single country, which contains a summary representation of contemporary scientific knowledge of the country in the fields of physical, economic and political geography [3]. It is usually an official or at least state-sponsored publication of all relevant spatial information available for a state's territory. As in all atlases, national atlas editors try to present the contents systematically; the consecutive maps relate to each other and together show the structure of the country. The national atlas concept presupposes a relatively large scale, to show a relatively large degree of detail including the smallest administrative units for which social and economic data are collected. Physical maps should show a detailed synthesis of earth science aspects. The material, usually collected from different sources, must be edited and redrawn to be presented at a similar level of generalization and hierarchical classification—to allow comparison. It is the systematic and similar treatment of the data which enables national atlas users to profit maximally from the concept. Comparison of different themes for the same region and comparison of different regions for the same theme should yield useful conclusions. To these should be added comparisons in time. The development of the national atlas concept was a logical consequence of the information explosion of the 19th century. The general advancement in the natural sciences was coupled with the phenomenal development of statistical data collection, especially in centralized states. Atlases made it possible to view all these spatial data together—to enable a partial or total synthesis to be made. The traditional national atlas can therefore be conceived as a non-computerized geographic information system in its own right: it was the first medium which enabled users to compare, overlay or otherwise combine data, for the first time presented at similar scales at a similar degree of generalization. The national atlas concept first materialized in the atlas of Finland, published in 1899, followed by Canada in 1906. Both countries have remained trend-setters in updating their national atlases (second edition in Finland in 1910, Canada in 1915: fifth editions in both countries in the 1980s) and in establishing standing national atlas organizations for revision and research. The national atlas of Switzerland, published as 96 separate sheets from 1965 to 1978, established new cartographic design standards. In 1956, the International Geographical Union (IGU) established a commission on national atlases to aid in their production and to help bring about standardization. In 1960, this commission produced, under the guidance of Professor K A Salishchev, a survey of their history, an analysis and a guide for their improvement [3]. In 1976, the successful IGU national atlases commission was disbanded and succeeded by the joint ICA (International Cartographic Association)/IGU working group on environmental atlases.

B. Köbben

This article reviews the historical context of the Dutch national atlas, noting that its predecessor, the Scientific Atlas of the Netherlands, ceased publication fifteen years ago due to limited commercial appeal. It focuses on the newly released Bosatlas of the Netherlands by Wolters-Noordhoff, arguing that while not a direct continuation of the scientific atlas, it successfully brings the national atlas to a broader audience through stunning photography, detailed data, and professional cartography. The author acknowledges its value for education and leisure reading but also points out issues such as time-sensitive content, questionable data scale choices, and stylistic inconsistencies in some chapters. The article concludes by noting the atlas's rapid sell-out and bestseller status, indicating its commercial success exceeded expectations.

Menno-Jan Kraak; Ferjan Ormeling; Barend Köbben; Trias Aditya

The recent developments around national spatial data infrastructures have stimulated interest to review and renew the national atlas concept. In a recent project a feasibility study and prototype implementation of an automatic visualisation of spatial data available through the spatial data infrastructure (SDI) have been executed in a systematic and cartographically accountable way to guarantee an up-to-date national atlas. The objective was to investigate how the national atlas could be organised as an integral part of the spatial data infrastructure. The atlas would benefit from an up-to-date data flow, and the SDI would benefit from integrated visual summaries of available spatial data and geoservices in well-designed comparable maps using the narrative characteristics of the atlas. As such the national atlas provides alternative interactive and dynamic access to the SDI.