Introduction to Foreign Atlases: Soviet World Atlas

This article introduces two significant Soviet atlas publications. The first is the 'Great Soviet World Atlas' (published 1937-1939), a comprehensive three-volume work covering physical, economic, and political geography. Renowned for its vast scope and thorough content, it demonstrated strong scientific and ideological rigor, concretely showcasing the achievements of Soviet socialist construction, exposing the nature of the capitalist world, employing a historical perspective in map compilation, and designing new map types to highlight regional characteristics. The second is the 'World Atlas' (first edition 1954, second edition 1967), primarily featuring general reference maps that detail the Earth's surface, settlements, administrative divisions, and transport routes with high accuracy, explicitly marking China's South China Sea islands. Organized by continent, the atlas comprises 283 pages, utilizes the conformal conic projection, represents relief through contours and hypsometric tints, and includes an index of over 200,000 place names. Both atlases hold significant scientific reference value.