Ngdm African Adventure Atlas (National Geographic) [Paperback]

Rand McNally (Author)

Book Description

Series: National Geographic | Publication Date: September 2003

This text divides the African continent into 15 geographical regions which are introduced over 30 pages and serve to lead the reader into the sections of the atlas, comprising National Parks, town plans and adventure activities. For ease of reference, colour-coded "tabs" clearly identify the different secitons, which include: Morocco and the western Sahara; Algeria; Tunisia; Egypt and Sudan; Senegal; Gambia; Niger; Libya and Chad; Guineau Bissau to Benin; Nigeria to the Central African Republic; Gabon, Congo; Democratic Republic of the Congo and Angola; Rwanda; Burundi; Uganda and the Great Lakes Region; Kenya; Tanzania; Mozambique and Malawi; Zambia and Zimbabwe; Nambia and Botswana; South Africa; Lesotho and Swaziland; Madagascar, Comoros; and Mauritius. An introductory section is followed by 40 pages of detailed, large-scale maps covering selected national parks highlight airfields, park camps, facilities and driving routes. Detailed maps to the scale of 1:1,000,000 and 1:3,500,000 feature relief terrain and include border posts, airports, all major and minor routes and their distances, points of interests, trails and national parks/reserves. There are also detailed street plans of selected major African cities and towns, together with indexes. The plans feature buildings and sites of interest, plus options for accommodation. Six adventure activities are explored for each geographical region, from river rafting and hot air ballooning to hiking and pony trekking.

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Rand McNally & Company (September 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1566951739
• ISBN-13: 978-1566951739
• Product Dimensions: 14.9 x 11 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #793,163 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Very dissapointing, August 6, 2005

By 

Tom - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ngdm African Adventure Atlas (National Geographic) (Paperback)

We can call it a road atlas. However, in that field it fails. Poor, difficult to read mapping (like white roads on very light gray background), plenty of empty space, no small roads, no coordinates grid, no relief shading or coloring, only limited amount of interesting places marked on the maps etc. I bought it in hopes I could use it for Africa overland travels, but it is way too limited. Very nice concept but poor implementation. If you only want to drive through "highways" and are on budget then this atlas may be somewhat useful, but probably Michelin Africa regional maps 741, 745 and 746 at 1:4.000.000 scale are better investment. It contains some maps of national parks and town that may be useful. Southern part of this atlas is advertised as 1:1.000.000 scale, however that does not mean it has more details! Actual mapping in this atlas is done by South African company Map Studio and their other atlases are same low mapping standard as well.

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A missed opportunity, October 11, 2003

By 

Marc Bernstein (Buffalo) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ngdm African Adventure Atlas (National Geographic) (Paperback)

This atlas fills a void in the geography and travel reference world. While it does cover a lot of ground, there is much that is missing. Regardless of what the folks at National Geographic intended, the buyers of this book are expecting an atlas. But this is an atlas that does not even have a decent political map of the whole continent. There is no physical map, no information at all about languages, religions, ethnic groups, population density, climate, vegetation, natural hazards or even wildlife. So what is in this atlas? There are maps covering all of Africa, maps of major cities, and maps of areas with high concentrations of national parks. There is plenty of ecotourism information and nice pictures. The maps though leave much to be desired. They basically show roads, towns and parks on a whitish background with very faint relief shading. There is no attempt to portray the nature of the landscape or the topography in any meaningful way (are we in a desert or in a jungle?), they completely forgot about railroads, and in this day of GPS navigation there is no latitude/longitude reference grid. All in all rather disapointing. Hopefully the next editon will make up for some of these shortcomings. Unfortunately it will probably be several years.