National atlases and development

Summary

Discussions are taking place in many countries on whether or not a (new) national atlas should be published, and in what form. This article provides general information on the function, content, requirements, structure and format of national atlases, and also on their role in national development. Examples are drawn from the production of the national atlas of The Netherlands. A national atlas has been defined by Salishchev as a basic, multi-subject geographic atlas of a single country, which contains a summary representation of contemporary scientific knowledge of the country in the fields of physical, economic and political geography [3]. It is usually an official or at least state-sponsored publication of all relevant spatial information available for a state's territory. As in all atlases, national atlas editors try to present the contents systematically; the consecutive maps relate to each other and together show the structure of the country. The national atlas concept presupposes a relatively large scale, to show a relatively large degree of detail including the smallest administrative units for which social and economic data are collected. Physical maps should show a detailed synthesis of earth science aspects. The material, usually collected from different sources, must be edited and redrawn to be presented at a similar level of generalization and hierarchical classification—to allow comparison. It is the systematic and similar treatment of the data which enables national atlas users to profit maximally from the concept. Comparison of different themes for the same region and comparison of different regions for the same theme should yield useful conclusions. To these should be added comparisons in time. The development of the national atlas concept was a logical consequence of the information explosion of the 19th century. The general advancement in the natural sciences was coupled with the phenomenal development of statistical data collection, especially in centralized states. Atlases made it possible to view all these spatial data together—to enable a partial or total synthesis to be made. The traditional national atlas can therefore be conceived as a non-computerized geographic information system in its own right: it was the first medium which enabled users to compare, overlay or otherwise combine data, for the first time presented at similar scales at a similar degree of generalization. The national atlas concept first materialized in the atlas of Finland, published in 1899, followed by Canada in 1906. Both countries have remained trend-setters in updating their national atlases (second edition in Finland in 1910, Canada in 1915: fifth editions in both countries in the 1980s) and in establishing standing national atlas organizations for revision and research. The national atlas of Switzerland, published as 96 separate sheets from 1965 to 1978, established new cartographic design standards. In 1956, the International Geographical Union (IGU) established a commission on national atlases to aid in their production and to help bring about standardization. In 1960, this commission produced, under the guidance of Professor K A Salishchev, a survey of their history, an analysis and a guide for their improvement [3]. In 1976, the successful IGU national atlases commission was disbanded and succeeded by the joint ICA (International Cartographic Association)/IGU working group on environmental atlases.