Book Reviews: Atlas of the Danubian Countries

This article comprises three book reviews written by Wolf Tietze, published in GeoJournal 6.3 (1982), covering three significant geographical works: the Atlas of Jerusalem, the Lexikon der Kartographie, and the Atlas of the Danubian Countries. The first review highly praises the Atlas of Jerusalem (1975), a collaborative effort between prominent Israeli geographers, Dutch cartographers from Wolters-Noordhoff, and the German publisher Walter de Gruyter. The atlas contains 109 maps organized into ten thematic sections, covering the region, history, urban structure, land use, population, transportation, and post-1967 changes. The review emphasizes that the atlas places Jerusalem within a broader Israeli-Palestinian context, using carefully selected statistics and well-documented references to provide clarity on this complex and politically sensitive subject. The second review evaluates W. Witt's Lexikon der Kartographie (Dictionary of Cartography), published by Franz Deuticke in Vienna in 1979, comprising 712 pages with 240 figures and tables. The review commends the work's comprehensiveness, thoroughness, and presentation, noting the author's unique status as a leading authority in both applied geography and cartography. The dictionary is cleverly organized with a 'systematic structure index' that functions as a thesaurus, allowing readers to access related keywords cohesively. The author demonstrates superb command of German, expressing complex concepts precisely yet accessibly, with textbook-like presentations and an internationally selected bibliography. The third review focuses on the sixth instalment (1981) of the Atlas of the Danubian Countries, edited by J. Breu, which adds five new maps covering climatic regions and temperature, commuter regions, predominant land use, important crops, and tourism. The review provides detailed analysis of each map's compilation methods and data sources, particularly praising the land use map for its completeness and the accompanying statistical tables showing country-wise data from 1950-1978. The tourism map, compiled by Karl Hawranek, uses symbols and diagrams to illustrate tourist flows, accommodation capacities, and the development of tourism across the region. The review concludes that despite the difficult source base, the atlas has been executed with impressive skill, representing another milestone in the contemporary regional geography of one of Europe's most diverse regions.