National atlas of the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya

Summary

Pierre-Yves Choux reviews the 1978 National Atlas of the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, prepared and printed in Sweden for the Secretariat of Planning with Libyan academic and institutional assistance, using statistical and cartographic data available in 1976–1977. Its analytical maps mostly use small scales and cover relief, climate, agriculture and industry. Choux observes that the 1:2,000,000 Sebha map shows Libyan claims along the southern borders with Algeria, Niger and Chad that differ from generally accepted boundaries. Maps of Cyrenaica at 1:1,000,000 and Tripolitania at 1:250,000 show major relief features, roads and settlement distribution. Scarce larger-scale maps cover urban planning and land use, archaeological areas and agricultural development; accompanying aerial photographs show agricultural settlement works financed by oil revenues. Choux situates the atlas within Libya's sudden oil wealth, linking hydrogeological, water-resource and petroleum-area maps to exploitation, and maps of Precambrian and Paleozoic surfaces beneath the Mesozoic to petroleum exploration. Historical maps place Libya in the Arab world; he finds the Gemini satellite images more incidental. He judges the atlas one of the best available sources on contemporary Libya and of a quality rarely matched among states in the region.