Planet Earth Macmillan World Atlas (Macmillan Atlases) [Hardcover]

David Prebenna (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0028612663 | ISBN-13: 978-0028612669 | Publication Date: September 24, 1996 | Edition: 1

Get the whole planet mapped in splendid detail and extraordinary color in this extremely competitive world atlas. With unmatched quality and content at a remarkably affordable price, this volume features superior coloration which adds new dimension to topographic features. These maps have been described as "innovative, modern, fresh, exciting, and comprehensive." 150 four-color photos. four-color maps.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Making elegant use of the latest in computer cartographic technology, Planet Earth is a beautiful, up-to-date, and surprisingly affordable atlas. Its digitized mapbase allows for exceptional accuracy and timeliness, and an attractive design makes the maps more readable than ever before. Ecological zones are marked using realistic colors (e.g., brown for deserts, green for rainforests), then shaded for contour to show major topographic features. Unlike other atlases that vary in scale from one page to the next, often enlarging Europe at the expense of the developing world, Planet Earth employs a unified scale the world over. It zooms in from stunning satellite imagery of the earth's surface to 1:445,000,000 representations of the entire world to 1:5,000,000 depictions of each continent. In addition, there's also a special section that includes more detailed maps of the United States and southern Canada.

As beautiful as its maps are, Planet Earth is not just for geography buffs; this atlas is highly practical. It includes a detailed depiction of the world's transportation networks--major roads, railways, and airports--and marks important cultural and natural sites.

From the Inside Flap

Planet Earth Macmillan World Atlas Peerless in affordability, quality, design, and practicality, Planet Earth Macmillan World Atlas presents precise, completely digitized maps to display the world with an accuracy and splendor that is unprecedented in atlas publishing. Planet Earth Macmillan World Atlas has been created by the distinguished Bertelsmann Cartographic Institute to meet the changing needs of a changing world. For the past several years, the institute has been collaborating with leading cartographers and geographers throughout the world to develop a database of fully digitized cartography that is without equal in the accuracy of its information, the usefulness of its content, and the contemporary elegance of its design. The result is a book at once fresh and cosmopolitan. Its mapping harnesses the most recent advances in computer cartography; its content incorporates an explosion of new knowledge about our planet; and its central informing philosophy is to show the world as the unified, interdependent community it has become. The cartographic choices and innovations that make Planet Earth Macmillan World Atlas unique bear out these qualities. Among the features of the atlas are the following. Accuracy A major advantage of creating a digitized cartographic database is that it allows continuous updating as the world changes. Shifts in boundaries, names, and features are incorporated as they occur. Thus the maps in Planet Earth Macmillan World Atlas are completely up-to-date. In addition, the plotting of latitude and longitude of every coastline, river, city, and mountain are more precise and accurate here than in any previous atlas. Natural Coloration Some mapmakers show contour by assigning each elevation a different color, resulting in maps that may portray a snow-topped mountain range in an artificial purple or orange. Others use strong shading to show contour but color all the land in various shades of beige. In Planet Earth Macmillan World Atlas, new, more realistic use of color lets you see the world more as it appears from space. Maps are colored naturalistically and according to ecological zones instead of altitude. Ice floes and snow-covered mountain ranges appear as white, rainforests as green, deserts as brown. Uniform Scale Throughout the World Planet Earth Macmillan World Atlas departs from the standard practice of using a variety of scales for different continents and countries and thereby perpetuating cartographic misinformation. Here the entire world is shown in a single, unified, and detailed scale of 1:5 million. The uniform scale allows you to see accurately the relative size of various places throughout the world, facilitating direct comparison of geographic regions: No longer does the entire subcontinent of India appear to be the same size as the relatively tiny British Isles. Plus Closer Scale for U.S. and Southern Canada At the same time, Planet Earth Macmillan World Atlas includes an additional section of maps tailored for a U.S. and Canadian readership: 64 pages of maps on a scale of 1:2.5 million showing details of each state and province of the United States and southern Canada. Practical Tools for the Traveler Planet Earth Macmillan World Atlas is designed to be as useful to the business and leisure traveler as it is attractive to the map lover. It includes details of continental road networks not found in any other atlas of its kind. The maps show the varying sizes of roadways through color and width, include route numbers and classifications, and indicate distances between points. They also show the location of airports and important natural and cultural sites. This combination of physical, cultural, and road information is unique, and makes Planet Earth Macmillan World Atlas especially useful at an affordably competitive price. Highest Production Values Bound in durable materials and printed on heavy coated stock, Planet Earth Macmillan World Atlas is produced with the highest quality components, designed to showcase the beauty of its contents and to last through many years of use.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 415 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (September 24, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0028612663
• ISBN-13: 978-0028612669
• Product Dimensions: 12 x 9.6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,095,151 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding, August 30, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Planet Earth Macmillan World Atlas (Macmillan Atlases) (Hardcover)

This is the most beautiful atlas I have seen in a long time. I make maps for a living, and I find this atlas' use of color to correspond to the actual vegetation on the earth a very inspiring and informative bonus. Why should maps be colored by country when they can be colored by what's really on the earth? All of the maps except for the last section of special closeups of the United States are all the same scale, 1:5,000,000, so you can look at the Nile and flip to where you live and see how long it really is. The constant scale means with this atlas, maps of parts of the world that previously were shown as tiny places in other atlases are shown at last in beautiful color and plenty of detail. A hearty recommendation, an outstanding bargain.

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars After shopping around, this is the best., May 24, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Planet Earth Macmillan World Atlas (Macmillan Atlases) (Hardcover)

I needed a really good, accurate, no fluff atlas, and I looked very hard, at many books, and even compared to MUCH more expensive ones, this was obviously the best atlas on the market. I ESPECIALLY LIKED THAT THERE WAS A CONSISTANT SCALE USED FOR ALL THE MAPS, SO THAT CERTAIN PARTS OF THE GLOBE WERE NOT NEGLECTED THE WAY EVERY OTHER ATLAS LIKED TO LEAVE THEM. It is so very clear and simple, really easy to use. This atlas made better use of page space, was a more convienient size, and was not as distracting as other cluttered atlases that made maps secondary to photos of natives.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Look at it before buying, May 31, 2002

By 

Darrell (New Orleans, LA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Planet Earth Macmillan World Atlas (Macmillan Atlases) (Hardcover)

This handsome volume is obviously the most detailed small atlas you will be able to find. It is a smaller (but exact) replication of the larger MacMillan series. It can also be used as a fairly accurate road atlas for most of the World. Important geographical and touristic features are also displayed readily. There is a cartographic quality which is missing considerably from other similar atlases.
As stated, all maps presented within are basically to the same scale worldwide. The result is that certain areas usually neglected in atlases such as Siberia, the Amazon basin and the Sahara are shown in explicit detail, whereas compact but geopolitically significant areas such as Western Europe are terribly compromised. Also, a few place name misspellings can be found. A person unfamiliar with national boundaries may find the lack of distinction between countries confusing on occasion. Another drawback is that the pages tend to fall out with frequent use.
Even so, with some adjustments by the editors and cartographers, this could easily be the most adequate atlas on the market. A comparison of other typically shoddy atlases at the same price level should make this clear.