Atlas of Canada

L. Dudley Stamp reviews the 1957 Atlas of Canada, published in 1959 by the Department of Mines and Technical Surveys’ Geographical Branch. He traces its predecessors of 1906 and 1915, prepared under James White and J. E. Chalifour, and the new atlas’s Cabinet authorization in 1948, followed by eight or nine years of planning, research and cooperative work. Intended to map Canada’s physical background and economic development at mid-century, its 110 removable, linen-hinged plates chiefly use the Lambert Conformal Conic projection and a basic scale of 1:10,000,000. Stamp surveys historical, physical, climatic, demographic and economic maps, with the social and economic material referring to dates between 1951 and 1957. He highlights detailed mapping examples alongside generalized maps, provincial settlement gazetteers, and paired urban land-use and development maps for eight cities, connected to the Branch’s land-use survey work. He praises the atlas’s comprehensive coverage, technical presentation and imaginative treatment, while questioning the authority behind regional delineations, inadequate acknowledgment of individual contributors, and the climatic classification adopted.