A new atlas of the Dutch East Indies

Summary

This review examines the Atlas van Tropisch Nederland, published in 1938, tracing its preparation from the initial plan of 1909 through delays caused by war and the economic crisis. Produced jointly by the Royal Netherlands Geographical Society and the Topographical Service of the Netherlands Indies, its 31 double-page sheets principally cover the Netherlands Indies, with additional coverage of Suriname and the Dutch Antilles. Robequain attributes improvements over earlier atlases to expanded surveying, photogrammetry, cartographic techniques, and scientific knowledge. He praises the representation of terrestrial and submarine relief, the extensive thematic coverage, and multilingual legends documenting sources and reliability. The review discusses geological, volcanic, vegetation, linguistic, historical, demographic, settlement, and economic maps, while criticizing inconsistent hypsometric coloring, insufficiently precise geomorphological legends, limited climatic coverage, and probable overstatement of primary forest extent. The author strongly endorses the atlas as a geographical reference and concludes with an explicitly favorable judgment of Dutch colonial enterprise.