Book reviews: General atlas of the Congo

The review examines published instalments of the Atlas Général du Congo issued by the Belgian Royal Colonial Institute. Its 1948 preface planned 110 maps with accompanying texts; 25 maps were available for review. French and Flemish legends and commentaries provide explanations, statistics and bibliographies. The sheets cover administration, exploration, geology, population, water, agriculture and livestock, surveying, languages, health, climate and missions. Administrative mapping documents territorial changes through official publications from 1888–1948 and six historical detail maps. The population-density map uses the smallest local territorial units; accompanying statistics show that 70% of the area has fewer than four inhabitants per square kilometre. The reviewer praises the systematic organization, technical quality and maintenance of a common scale across the thematic series, while noting a separate overview map. The extensive commentaries lead the reviewer to characterize this continuing publication as both an atlas and a regional geography.