National atlas of Hungary

Márton Pécsi describes the aims, compilation and contents of the 1989 National Atlas of Hungary. Prepared more than two decades after the first edition, it sought to portray Hungary's natural, social and economic resources in the early 1980s and the preceding two decades of change. Following a 1983 appeal by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, twelve ministries and other bodies supported the work, with hundreds of specialists from more than fifty institutions participating. Maps, cartograms, tables and explanatory texts synthesized over a century of research and surveying. Most mapped data end in the mid-1980s or at the 1980 census; some explanatory chapters include 1988 figures. Incomplete statistics limited coverage, while differences in available territorial units shaped map scales and chapter lengths. The atlas contains 603 independent maps on 273 map pages, supplemented by inset maps, diagrams, satellite and aerial images, and a map of all settlements. Pécsi surveys its treatment of natural resources, population and settlements, housing, health, education, industry and agriculture, noting the introduction of nature-conservation and environmental-protection mapping. His account emphasizes environmental constraints, population decline and rural disadvantage. He criticizes centralized settlement and industrial policies and delayed industrial restructuring, and describes both the gains from cooperation between large farms and household production and the mounting pressures on agriculture during the 1980s.