Neue Nationalatlanten : Japan und DDR

Summary

This paper compares two national atlases published in the 1970s: the National Atlas of Japan (English edition, 1977) and the Atlas of the German Democratic Republic (first delivery, 1976). Although both share a similar basic structure—from overview and physical geography to population and economy—they differ significantly in content emphasis: the GDR atlas prioritizes socialist production, while the Japanese atlas focuses more on services, social conditions, and cultural institutions. Furthermore, the GDR atlas utilizes the reverse sides of map sheets for multilingual legends and supplementary information, whereas the Japanese atlas provides extensive textual and graphic explanations for each thematic section, resembling a small geographic encyclopedia. The paper also discusses cartographic style, color usage, scale differences, and the application of semiology in thematic mapping, noting that the Japanese atlas is more traditional while the GDR atlas is more modern in symbol standardization.