Customer Reviews

Merriam-Webster's Geographical Dictionary, Third Edition

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3 star:		(3)
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The Merriam-Webster's Geographical Dictionary is quite good desktop reference for matters of geography, and it offers a fairly thorough resource for place names, a bit of history and background, and enough maps (more than 250) to be helpful for the everyday user. It features the customary characteristics of any dictionary such as pronunciation guides, explanatory notes, and a bevy of abbreviations and symbols. The maps are more detailed than I expected, but certainly this text will not supplant anyone's atlas. (And if your atlas is one of the larger ones, then you probably do not keep it at your writing desk.)

This dictionary is especially useful for writers and editors who, perhaps on tight deadlines, need to check spellings and other general overview information or find out where a river, bay, mountain range, or other natural feature is located.

Many small, obscure locations and features are not included, likely because the publisher had to decide between utility and thoroughness, and utility won. And this utility is, in fact, the strength of this publication. One should not purchase it instead of, but in addition to, an atlas. That's why I consider the functionality of this dictionary to be like a Leatherman tool: it will not do everything, but it's the best single resource of its type.

It is devoid of color and pretty representations of topography, but it has the best political maps I have ever seen and things like mountains, rivers, plateaus (I never knew there was something called Cockpit Country in Jamaica.), plains, bays, etc., etc., etc. indicated just with words, not artwork. To give the Jamaica example:
the map shows more than 20 cities and towns, plus South Negril Point, Portland Point, South East Point, Montego Bay (of course), Bluefield Bay, Dolphin Head (1,788 ft), Blue Mountain Peak (7,393 ft), the Blue Mts., Dry Harbour Mts, Pedro Plains, Portland Bight, three named rivers and a passel of smaller ones not named on the map, and Jamaica Channel.
There is a very good introduction on map projections, and clear symbols on the maps. 48,000 geographical entities are listed and described. Some no longer exist, but a thumbnail history is given, e.g. Nineveh, Lourenco Marques, now Maputo, the capital of Mozambique. Total of 252 maps, mostly of the countries of the world (with insets to show where the country is located in the world) and the states and provinces of the U.S. and Canada. The map of Japan, where I live, has an inset showing all 47 prefectures, numbered and identified in a list.
The only drawback is that the size of the pages is B5. This makes the maps a little small, but they can always be increased in size with a magnifiying glass or a copy machine (being careful not to violate copyright laws, of course). They have such fine detail that increasing the size, say from B5 to B4, does not blur the details. And being the size of a Webster's Collegiate or maybe a little smaller, it is not exactly something you can balance on your little finger, but you could carry it in a backpack or small LL Bean canvas bag pretty comfortably.
Finally, any place mentioned in one entry also has an entry of its own. For instance, I looked up Castellorizo, which is the English name for a Greek island that is the last in the Dodecanese chain and actually would logically seem to belong to Turkey from its location. This included references to the Dodecanese and to the island of Rhodes, both of which have their own listings. In addition, there is a bit of history of Castellorizo (and it's various spellings in the appropriate languages) indicating that it had been Greek, then Turkish, then Italian (1923) then back to Greece (1947). Your average atlas won't have that.
As I said, it is not a beautiful book and it is not a textbook. But it has helped me many times to find where a place is, even places or areas easy to look up elsewhere but hard to see once you get the map because the lettering is obscured by artwork of brown mountains, green plains and blue lakes. This book assumes that you know that mountains are high, plains are flat and lakes have water in them that looks blue when the sky is clear.

This is an excellent reference book that covers a myriad of geographical locations. The maps are also excellent. I highly recommend this book. A previous reviewer claims that the editors made an egregious mistake by including Slovenia as part of the Balkan states. Maybe that person should do a little research because virtually every resource, including Microsoft Encarta, includes Slovenia in the Balkans. And yes, the Ottomans did conquer Slovenia. The Ottomans had to surrender Slovenia, Hungary, and Croatia to the Hapsburgs in 1699. The editors of this book got it right on the money. As for that reviewer -- a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

This is an all-around good reference. It is well organized with readable sized print, and an excellent bargain.

I use it for spelling purposes, clarification (where in the world is that?), population, and solving the odd crossword puzzle and acrostic. I use it far more than I thought I would, and it hasn't failed me yet.

I am writing as an average consumer without specific professional needs in this reference. Judging by the easy format and the understandable structure, I would say I was the type of user the editors had in mind. I believe it would earn its keep on your reference shelf.

If you only need a general resource for looking up countries, cities and such, this book will do just fine. If you need specific information about a continent or region, find a more detailed book dedicated to that area. In most cases the lat/long of places was fairly accurate but many of the things I needed to refer to needed a finer coordinate. It also will go out of date fairly qucikly with the fast changing political climates of some areas. Great for stable areas, well developed countries, large to medium cities but not very effective beyond that.

I had been using the 1988 edition without the need to update my library with the Second Edition until last year. Owing to geopolitical changes since 1988, a more recent edition of Webster's New Geographical Dictionary seemed necessary and the Third Edition was the current version available. The Third Edition contains more current background information (e.g. Union of Soviet Socialist Republics), expanded entries (e.g. Palghat), a subtle, easier-to-read font, sidebars, and cleaner maps (e.g. Palestine). That said, if you want more detailed maps or more concise country profiles, you might be better off checking other resource materials such as National Geographic (Magazine maps) and The CIA World Fact Book respectively. Where this boook retains its advantage is that it contains diacritical notation for the proper pronunciation of the place names.

In a description of the Merriam-Webster's Geographical Dictionary, it states that this volume lists "more than 48,000 alphabetically arranged entries of mountains, lakes, towns, and countries." I had to check whether mountains were indeed included, as my first searches of prominent places in the Andes were not successful using this volume.

This reference has received many accolades here so I was looking forward to getting the copy I ordered as part of my reference books. But after a cursory examination, I must say that my first impression is one of disappointment, rather than accolades.

I looked first for several places in South America where I have been in years past and am familiar with, as I am sure this is what most people do with this volume when they first receive it. When I looked up Alpamayo, a mountain in Peru, it was not in the book at all. This is not just any old mountain. Alpamayo was named the "most beautiful mountain the world" by a German Mountaineering Club in the 1920's or 1930's. In addition, Alpamayo was declared "the most beautiful mountain in the world" by UNESCO in 1966. So imagine my surprise when it was not listed in the book.

Also, Huascaran, the second highest mountain in South America, was not listed at all. I had to do a double check to believe this. Huaraz, the city that is an embarkation point into the Andes of Peru was listed, but Huascaran was not.

Again, these were only preliminary and cursory checks, but these are not just any mountains or places on a map. They are significant points of interest which were entirely omitted from a book devoted to geographical points of interest. And if these are not in the book, what else has been ommitted?

Missing many place names (I could only find half of the ones I needed). Especially weak for small countries, ethnic parts of other countries (Brittany, Basque names, etc.) and for eastern european countries. Weak for place names that might be in more than one language (German and Polish border place names, for example). I needed only European place names; I have no idea how this book measures up for other continents, if it is so mediocre for Europe.

I have used this book as a reliable geographical reference for years and never found it wanting. Both historic and modern places and geographic features are included. I have found everything I needed, from Ash Flat to Pskov.

The appendix contains a thorough table of geographical terms in languages other than English, as well as a useful glossary.

This book is very useful and as complete as can be expected for awork of its kind. Obviously it will be quickly outdated but will continue to serve a purpose for years to come. The level of detail is adequate given the limited scope that its size mandated. For smaller, less common places, a state place names index or local atlas, even a highway map would be a better resource. For international locations, perhaps National Geographic has a more detailed atlas. But these limitations must be expected and should not detract from the overall usefulness of this book.