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Geographica: The Complete illustrated Atlas of the World
The ultimate world reference.
630 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1999
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About the author
Philippa Sandall
20 books1 followerPhilippa Sandall is a writer, editorial consultant, and coauthor of the bestselling New Glucose Revolution series and Seafurrers blog.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
January 9, 2019
I really liked the portions with the history of each country. What they import and export is more boring, but it is geography xD It was also very Eurocentric, with the UK getting four pages of text and the US 5. The thing that annoyed me the most we're the typos I kept finding -_-; such as a description of two explorers to the South Pole: one who arrived December 1912 and another who arrived "almost a month later on January 17th, 1912."
March 19, 2009
The last atlas I'll ever own...
There are fantastic maps of the whole world, continent and country profiles, and sections covering the basics of much of geography.
Why is this the last?
Well the rise of internet-based cartographic and encyclopedic tools have pretty much rendered the static book-based atlas obsolete. That being said I still use this atlas today if I'm reading a book based in an unfamiliar area - its just more convenient than propping up the laptop in bed. The latest was Blood River A Journey to Africa's Broken Heart set in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This atlas provided a useful bed-side reference to the geography of the Congo. But the country profile is now 10 years out of date and the province boundaries are no incorrect. The 1:9,000,000 scale map of the area (mostly based on 1960s era mapping) doesn't match Google Earth with 1m resolution (ie roughly 1:10,000) 2006 satellite imagery of most of the towns, and with 15m resolution <10 year old imagery. This is a pretty extreme example of a poorly mapped and fast-changing country, but it is reflective of the limitations of a paper atlas like this.
There are fantastic maps of the whole world, continent and country profiles, and sections covering the basics of much of geography.
Why is this the last?
Well the rise of internet-based cartographic and encyclopedic tools have pretty much rendered the static book-based atlas obsolete. That being said I still use this atlas today if I'm reading a book based in an unfamiliar area - its just more convenient than propping up the laptop in bed. The latest was Blood River A Journey to Africa's Broken Heart set in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This atlas provided a useful bed-side reference to the geography of the Congo. But the country profile is now 10 years out of date and the province boundaries are no incorrect. The 1:9,000,000 scale map of the area (mostly based on 1960s era mapping) doesn't match Google Earth with 1m resolution (ie roughly 1:10,000) 2006 satellite imagery of most of the towns, and with 15m resolution <10 year old imagery. This is a pretty extreme example of a poorly mapped and fast-changing country, but it is reflective of the limitations of a paper atlas like this.
June 6, 2015
Very comprehensive
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews