A retrospective on the Norwegian national atlas

Jens Christian Hansen, former chair of the National Atlas Council, critically recounts the development of Nasjonalatlas for Norge from early planning to its transition from loose maps and text booklets to a book series. He attributes its incomplete coverage and production delays to weak coordination, unstable funding, unrealistic expectations of external finance, and the loss of editorial expertise following the mapping authority’s 1991 reorganization. In his account, market-led publishing reduced the council’s influence over subject priorities and publication order. Health appeared in December 1996, Sport in 1997 and Vegetation Regions in 1998; Sport secured a publishing place through a contractual partner and external funding despite lacking the council’s academic priority, while other planned subjects remained unfinished or were shelved. Hansen acknowledges the published booklets, work on the new book format and improved thematic-mapping expertise. He nevertheless concludes that the ministry’s March 1996 decision ended the atlas as a coordinated project. By the time of writing, three books had appeared, but costs were high, sales insufficient and no new co-funded products had been developed. He presents a searchable map database as a possible future form, conditional on the atlas being revived.