Annotated bibliography: National atlas of China

This bibliographic review by Funakoshi Akio treats the five-volume National Atlas of China edited by Chang Chi-yan (Taipei, 1960–1963, 162 maps) as a set. It sets out the division of the volumes: Taiwan in Vol. I; the Central Asian continental borderlands in Vol. II; North China (Northeast, North, Northwest) in Vol. III; South China (Central, South, Southwest) in Vol. IV; general maps of China in Vol. V. The projection is Lambert conformal; Vol. V uses mainly 1:13,000,000 and 1:17,500,000, Vols III and IV take 1:2,000,000 as the base for China proper, with Yunnan and the southwest at 1:2,500,000 and Hainan at 1:4,000,000, Vol. I uses 1:200,000 and 1:100,000, and Vol. II varies by region. Vols V, I and II combine political-division and relief maps with industry and climate maps, while Vols III and IV on China proper reduce the content to political divisions and relief, with inset maps of major cities. Administrative divisions follow the 1947 promulgation with some revisions; place names carry Wade-Giles romanization, and every volume except Vol. V ends with alphabetical and stroke-count indexes. The reviewer is reserved about the cartographic technique itself, judging that it does not surpass the 1934 中華民国新地図 edited by Ting Wen-chiang, Weng Wen-hao and Tseng Shih-ying for the Shenbao jubilee; he notes at the same time that Vol. V adds soil, forest and vegetation maps, that borderland material is richer, and that the large-scale Taiwan maps make physical, human and economic conditions easy to survey, which he reads as showing the postwar development of Chinese geographical research. He also observes that the bibliographies at the front of each volume omit recent work by mainland geographers.