Atlas of the Azerbaijan SSR

R. S. Narskikh and G. A. Pravotorova review the Atlas of the Azerbaijan SSR, published in 1963 in Azerbaijani (10,000 copies) and Russian (20,000). Scientists from the republic’s Academy of Sciences institutes, assisted by ministry and departmental specialists, prepared 176 maps, 28 inset maps and supporting texts and graphics from long-term research and data mainly current to 1 January 1961. A cartographic factory jointly developed the project with the scientists and undertook cartographic compilation and publication. The review surveys the atlas’s introductory, natural-conditions, economic, cultural and historical sections. Natural conditions occupy nearly half the atlas; the reviewers emphasize its 33 climate maps, detailed groundwater and hydrological mapping, soil erosion, vegetation, wildlife, conservation and coverage of the Caspian Sea. They describe thematic techniques including isolines, area symbols, cartograms and cartodiagrams, praising pictorial wildlife symbols for readability. Economic coverage includes industry, energy, agriculture, ten economic-geographic regions, transport and economic links. They particularly commend irrigation mapping and agricultural maps showing collective-farm income, pasture use and mineral-fertilizer application. Education, health care, resorts, historical maps and monuments complete the coverage. Criticisms concern inconsistent mud-volcano depiction, questionable runoff zoning, industrial centres sized by population, some agricultural map ordering, insufficient coordination with comparable maps in the Armenian SSR atlas, and unexplained local irrigation terms in the Russian edition. The reviewers nevertheless rank the atlas among the leading Soviet regional comprehensive atlases, praising its scientific detail, reference material and production quality, and recommending it for studying the republic’s nature and economy and for preliminary economic planning.