Oxford Atlas of the World [Hardcover]

George Philip & Son (Corporate Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 29, 1998 | ISBN-10: 0195214641 | ISBN-13: 978-0195214642 | Edition: 6

Hailed as "extraordinary" (New York Times) when it debuted, the Atlas of the World has now undergone its most significant revision ever, with sixteen added pages of world maps, including improved coverage of the South East United States, Alaska, Hawaii, Australia, the Middle East, Indonesia, the Philippines, Central Europe, France, the British Isles, and Iceland. In addition, the index has been updated, the thematic section includes the latest statistical information, and five maps of Europe are now derived from a new digital database. Offering spectacular state-of-the-art maps and a gold mine of information, Atlas of the World continues to be the finest top-of-the-line atlas available.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The only world atlas updated annually, the fifteenth edition of Oxford's Atlas of the World offers exceptional value at a reasonable price. Full of crisp, clear cartography, it contains maps of 69 cities and nearly 100 different regions around the globe as well as striking satellite views of the Earth's surface.

Take a Look at the Stunning Illustrations in The Atlas of the World
(Click on images to enlarge)

Topography of Europe

Topography of Africa

Topography of Southeast Asia

The landmass Pangea and today's continents. Learn more about continental drift

A diagram of faultlines in the earth's crust. Learn more about earthquakes

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--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

The latest revision of Oxford's highly acclaimed Atlas of the World is as up-to-date as can be in the post-September 11 world. "Site of former World Trade Center" says one caption on an updated map of lower Manhattan- and Baghdad has been added to the 67 maps of major cities around the world, including Moscow, Lisbon and Jerusalem. Statistics on the U.S. have been updated from the 2000 Census, and a new Gazetteer of Nations offers easy reference. But the heart, and strength, of this atlas remains the hundreds of colorful, beautifully detailed maps, conveying not only topographical features but also disputed boundaries, railways and principal roads. This is an indispensable reference for students as well as anyone interested in the state of the world, from population statistics to the environment and our impact on it. It will provide hours of happy, fascinating browsing.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA; 6 edition (October 29, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195214641
• ISBN-13: 978-0195214642
• Product Dimensions: 14.6 x 11.2 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (93 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,841,087 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

110 of 111 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not the gold standard - but the best value for money, November 11, 2005

By 

Boris Bangemann "boyse" (Singapore) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Atlas of the World, 12th Edition (Hardcover)

This is the best atlas you can get in this price category. The gold standard of world atlases - The Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World - will cost you three times as much as this one.

The features of the Oxford University Press's "Atlas of the World" are quite similar to the Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World. It has the same user-friendly overview over the maps contained in the atlas ("Key to the World/European Map Pages") on the insides of the front and back hardcover. And it has the same comprehensive index of names in the back, featuring not only the location of a certain place on the grid of a map, but also the place's longitude and latitude. As a bonus, there are 16 pages with stunning satellite pictures of - among others - cities like Los Angeles, New York, Tokyo, Sydney and Naples with Mount Vesuvius.

The main difference is the size of the two atlases: The Times Atlas is 19 by 13.3 inches, the Oxford Atlas is 15 by 11.3 inches. The bigger-sized maps of the Times Atlas allow greater detail.

If you still have small kids in the house who love to thumb through your books, this atlas will be your best choice. In its price category it is absolutely a 5-star book.

344 of 363 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars THE GOLD STANDARD, October 14, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Atlas of the World, 10th Edition (Hardcover)

In choosing a world atlas for my family, I looked at all that were available: from Oxford, National Geographic, Rand McNally, Hammond, DK, and other publishers. This new edition of the Oxford
Atlas of the World is clearly the gold standard. Just published, it is of course the most up-to-date atlas available. More importantly, it is accurate and detailed, exquisitely produced (a joy to look at)and very readable. Unlike other atlases, for example, the maps do not run into the gutters. The introductory section containing informational maps and data (country population, income, products,languages, etc.) and stunning satellite photos is virtually a book in itself and worth the price of admission. And for all that one gets, the price is more than reasonable. This is more than a reference book--it's a good read. I highly recommend it.

240 of 252 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Ultimately disappointing, January 3, 2004

By 

R. Fusillo (Atlanta, GA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Atlas of the World (Hardcover)

At first glance this is a beautiful, almost spectacular, book. Lots of color, dramatic aerial photos of the earth, and a large section devoted to topics ranging from the earth's history to modern population shifts.
But as a reference book it falls short. There are a lot of maps, but there is really less there than meets the first look: a lot of space is taken up with a narrowing down of detail - one map shows the hemisphere, then another an area of the hemisphere, then another a detail, of sorts, of the area. And often a detail of the detail. The cost to the reader is a lot of redundancy, and that very few countries get a full, detailed, page of their own. And many of the larger maps, especially, are quietly inaccurate. Towns are shown in the wrong places, major towns are missing at the expense of smaller ones. For a representative example: on map number 147, Statesboro, Georgia, which is 23 miles north of the I-16 expressway, is shown south of it; one of the largest cities in the hundred miles north of Atlanta, Marietta, is not there at all, but Roswell, 13 miles away, is shown at Marietta's location. Similar problems abound in other places.
As a geographical reference it lacks any claim to completeness: hundreds of towns that are shown and indexed in my forty year old Encyclopedia Britannica World Atlas are not in the new Oxford at all. There are over 84,000 listings in the old Britannica, Oxford claims 75,000, but quite a few are duplicates, because the same city appears on several of the various sized maps. Elkhart, Grapeland, Latexo, and scores and scores of other Texas towns that made it into the Britannica forty years when they were much smaller, are nowhere to be found in the new Oxford. They may be comparatively small towns, but a good atlas should show such things: I don't need an expensive coffee table book to find Dallas three times. And even when a town makes it, it gets short shrift: the Britannica index told us the county, state, and population of Creede, Colorado; the Oxford lists it merely as Creede, U.S.A.
Unfortunately, the Britannica appears to be out of print, but if you have one, don't replace it with the splashy Oxford, even tho it does have pretty pictures of the earth from outer space.