An atlas of Portugal

Summary

This review discusses the second edition of A. de Amorim Girão's Atlas de Portugal, published in 1958 by the Institute of Geographical Studies of the Faculty of Letters, University of Coimbra. The reviewer examined it at the request of Aroldo de Azevedo, editor of the Boletim Paulista de Geografia. He notes that the second edition differs markedly from the first (1941), though both were prepared under Girão's supervision. The atlas is organized geo-statistically and contains 43 plates, mostly thematic maps and cartograms at 1:1,500,000, together with five geographical maps of the overseas territories and three uncolored cartograms on the origin and evolution of Portugal, Portuguese expansion through discoveries, conquests and colonization, and the 1958 situation of Portuguese lands and Portuguese settlement centers worldwide. The reviewer praises the offset printing, color gradation and legibility of most plates, but criticizes the absence of a general location map, which makes the river profiles and drainage-basin maps difficult for non-Portuguese readers to use, and finds the orographic coloring and block capital lettering of map 2 hard to read. He links the atlas to Bernardino Barros Gomes's 1878 collection of five elementary maps of Portugal and considers the binding and paper suitable for school use, calling the work a notable achievement of Portuguese thematic cartography.