Reviews: Chung-Hua-Min-Kuo Hsin Ti-Tu (A New Atlas of China)

The review evaluates Chung-Hua-Min-Kuo Hsin Ti-Tu (A New Atlas of China), published by Shen Pao Press in 1934 to mark the newspaper’s sixtieth anniversary. V. K. Ting and W. H. Wong, with S. Y. Tseng as cartographer, prepared it over several years using reliable, current published and private sources available to the National Geological Survey of China. Its fifty-three double-page maps include paired political and physical maps, thematic charts, and fifty-eight city maps; a 180-page gazetteer lists over 33,000 place-names with coordinates and distinguishes astronomically established positions. China proper is mapped at 1:2,000,000, and Mongolia, Sinkiang, and Tibet at 1:5,000,000. The reviewer praises the draughtsmanship, relief colours, print registration, and binding that lets the sheets lie flat. Chinese-only text is judged a serious obstacle for Western geographers. Recognizing that romanized labels would overcrowd the maps, the reviewer proposes English titles and legends and, for a future edition, a romanized gazetteer with cross-references or coordinates. Despite this limitation, the reviewer calls it China’s standard atlas and credits the Survey’s leaders for completing it amid recent disturbances.