Britain's National Atlas: Review

Summary

This article reviews the Atlas of Britain and Northern Ireland, published by Oxford University Press in 1963, marking a milestone in British cartography. It recounts the project's turbulent history since 1938, ultimately completed by private enterprise. The atlas uses a standard scale of 1:2,000,000, mapping contemporary resources with data from the 1951 census and other sources, and innovatively employs circular symbols for distributions. Despite minor issues like information overload on some maps, it is hailed as a monumental reference work essential for academic and public libraries.