Saudi Arabia沙特阿拉伯

Curatorial Note

The national atlas tradition of Saudi Arabia reflects the kingdom’s post-oil modernization, where cartography served both administrative planning and national identity. The three atlases in this collection, spanning 1978 to 2015, trace a shift from foreign academic publishing to domestic institutional production. The 1978 volume, issued by Oxford University Press, was an early collaborative effort, presenting the kingdom’s geography in a Western academic style. The 1999 and 2015 editions, both produced under the Ministry of Higher Education, mark a transition to national authorship, with Arabic as the primary language and English as a secondary. These later atlases emphasize thematic mapping—population, resources, infrastructure—and adopt a standardized, data-rich layout. Together, they illustrate how Saudi Arabia’s cartographic voice matured, moving from external expertise to internal state-led scholarship. Their enduring significance lies in their role as official references for planners, educators, and researchers, and in their reflection of the kingdom’s evolving self-representation on the world stage.