An historical atlas of China

Summary

This review assesses the 1966 revised edition of Hermann’s An Historical Atlas of China, a work intended to improve understanding of China’s past and geography through cartographic representation. Its maps fall into two principal categories: historical maps and maps of physical and economic geography. The historical section traces China from prehistoric times to 1930 and incorporates revisions based on more recent scholarship. Among the maps of modern China, those depicting population distribution and Chinese communities in Southeast Asia are especially noteworthy. The reviewer identifies the omission of 1930–1966 as the atlas’s chief weakness, particularly its failure to cover the Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese People’s War of Liberation. An English–Chinese index, including Chinese characters, increases usability. Overall, the atlas is informative and valuable, although its incomplete treatment of modern history limits its comprehensiveness.