Venezuela's map situation: past and present

Within his survey of Venezuelan cartography, Shosuke Hosoi compares the national mapping agency’s Atlas de Venezuela (1969, reprinted in 1971) with Atlas de Venezuela 1979. Both measure 45 × 32 cm; the first edition has 210 pages and the second 331. The first contains 45 basic map sheets and approximately 90 thematic maps, including small maps. Its basic section covers historical maps, contemporary mapping, Caracas and federal entities; its thematic section covers physical geography, population, economy, transport, society and culture, urban growth and regional development. Hosoi notes that photographs and short explanations help readers understand the mapped subjects. The 1979 edition retains this structure but expands to approximately 80 basic map sheets and more than 180 thematic maps. It adds historical maps of Caracas, state information tables, and maps and descriptions of the nine development regions established in 1975. Maps replace the state-capital photographic mosaics, and ground-level landscape photographs are reduced by half. Hosoi characterizes the first edition’s federal-entity section as a visual regional geography and considers the added tables and prose to strengthen that character in the second. Physical-geography maps change relatively little, while newly added statistical maps account for much of the thematic expansion.