Book reviews: Atlas of Japan: Physical, Economic and Social

The reviewer praises the updated second edition of Atlas of Japan: Physical, Economic and Social (1974), edited by Akira Ebato and Kazuo Watanabe, for its cartography, color, reproduction, metropolitan insets, and readable statistical tables and graphs. Its thematic maps cover the physical environment, population and cities, agriculture, forestry and fisheries, mining, power and manufacturing, trade, income, transportation, mass media, and national parks and monuments. The reviewer notes the omission of air and water pollution and finds that the maps remain clear despite their extensive information. The English, French, and Spanish supplement explains the maps through concise geographical accounts, including population change from the Tokugawa period onward, postwar rural-to-urban migration, agricultural mechanization, sea-farming, and urban concentration in Densely Inhabited Districts. The reviewer regards the maps and accompanying texts as a broad, visually accomplished basic reference on Japan’s modernization.