Times Atlas of the World : 10th Comprehensive Edition [Hardcover]

London Times (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 081293265X | ISBN-13: 978-0812932652 | Publication Date: October 13, 1999 | Edition: 1st

For more than three decades, The Times Atlas of the World has earned international renown for the beauty and legibility of its mapping and its unparalleled detail for coverage of all parts of the globe. As Lord Shackleton, former president of the Royal Geographical Society, said of an earlier edition, it is "the finest reference atlas ever published." Now, The Times Atlas of the World, Tenth Comprehensive Edition, the first completely revised edition since The Times Atlas of the World debuted in 1967, establishes an even higher standard among all reference atlases, and a new benchmark in its own unparalleled tradition.

The Tenth Comprehensive Edition opens with stunning satellite images of the continents and the oceans as they appear from space. This preliminary section continues with a series of graphics, photographs, maps, tables, and charts reviewing the cosmos, the natural world, and humanity's interaction with our home planet. Next is a comparative list of Earth's physical features, from rivers to mountains to islands to deserts, and a complete statistical guide to the states and territories of the world. This opening section concludes with a fascinating chronicle on the evolution of world mapping, beginning with our first attempt to map the world more than a thousand years ago.

The central section of The Tenth Comprehensive Edition, with 248 pages of breathtakingly detailed reference maps, provides the most accurate and up-to-date visual presentation of geographical knowledge in any atlas today. Each map, drawn with generous scale and projection, has been entirely redesigned since the last edition, using the latest digital technology. While creating maps of optimum accuracy, these new methods also provide enhanced clarity and greater legibility than ever before, even for an atlas that was already legendary for the readability of its maps. In addition to recording the new states and republics created by political upheaval in this last decade before the millennium, The Tenth Comprehensive Edition includes a multitude of renamed towns and cities, along with many revised national borders.

The revised and expanded index, covering more than 200,000 place names, is the largest index ever found in a single-volume atlas, virtually ensuring that any location a reader may be looking for will be included in the book. The index is also unique in scope, giving the name, description, regional and country locations, the map grid reference, page number, and latitude and longitude. No other atlas comes close to providing such an index, either in sheer numbers or in reference value.

In the last three decades, The Times Atlas of the World has been in the vanguard of a revolution in the science of cartography, replacing maps formerly created on hand-etched copper plates with maps that are computer-generated. The Times Atlas of the World, Tenth Comprehensive Edition, represents the fullest flowering yet of this remarkable revolution in cartography. It is the finest atlas ever published, sure to be treasured by students, scholars, armchair travelers, global sightseers, and anyone seeking better understanding of our dynamic planet.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Still the classic after all these years. Superb cartography and attention to detail, the emphasis is on the maps of countries (and some city maps) and on the excellent gazetteer, which includes latitude and longitude center points for each place.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Librarians and atlas aficionados have waited with anticipation for the tenth edition of The Times Atlas of the World. It has finally arrived, advertised as the "first completely revised and redesigned edition" since the first edition of 1967 and the "most comprehensive portrayal of the world available."

Maps and the index are the heart and soul of a good atlas, and Times is impressive in these areas. The 248 pages of maps, produced through digital technology, are beautiful. The colors of the maps have been changed, and the lighter hues show differences in elevation more clearly. The lighter colors combined with a clearer typeface make the place names easier to read.

Starting with Oceania and ending with South America, the book begins each continent section with a political map. There are at least 10 plates for each section, often with more than one map of a region, with the definition increasing with each map. Many atlases are criticized for having less coverage of Asia, but Times has doubled its number of maps on Japan and added five additional pages of maps on China. There is no doubt that the 200,000-plus place-name index is an impressive achievement, far exceeding the index in any competitive atlas. But it seems to have shrunk in certain instances--Morris, New York, and Wahroonga, Australia, were listed in the index and on maps in the ninth edition but are not found in the tenth. The introduction to the index does verify that all listings in the index appear on maps, something not true of all atlases.

The atlas's introductory material is both visually intriguing and interesting to read. The satellite image of the Antarctica is strikingly beautiful. The new millennium is emphasized with double-page spreads of the world in 2000 by subject: earthquakes, oceans, land cover, population, energy, etc. A fact in the climate section (the highest wind velocity in a tornado was recorded in Oklahoma on May 3, 1999) demonstrates the atlas's currency. Statistical information on countries and states precede the maps, while a glossary of geographic terms in languages other than English follows the maps.

The Board noted a few problems with the maps. The city of Constitucion (pop. 40,000) can be found on the detailed map of Chile but not on the general map, although smaller towns in the area appear on both. Using Chile in another example, mistakes are perpetuated from one edition to another. In both the ninth and tenth editions, El Tofo is listed in both the index and on the map as El Toro. But the major criticism of this fine atlas is the lack of city maps. The ninth edition (and other major world atlases) includes inset or full-page maps of cities and their environs. The closest the tenth edition comes is one page each for the area of San Francisco and Los Angeles and a double-page of the U.S. Northeast corridor. Inset maps are reserved for islands: Gibraltar, the Hawaiian Islands, Hong Kong. A minor annoyance is the lack of a symbol for a projected highway on the symbols and abbreviations page.

Despite a few disappointments, this new edition of a classic reference source is a beautiful, comprehensive, and well-done depiction of the world at the beginning of a new millennium. Its closest competitor is the second edition of The Book of the World [RBB Je 1 & 15 99], which is larger and flashier but has an index half the size. Priced at about half the cost of The Book of the World, The Times Atlas of the World should be considered for purchase by all libraries.

Reference Books in brief

The following is a list of additional recent and recommended reference sources.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 544 pages
• Publisher: Times Books; 1st edition (October 13, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 081293265X
• ISBN-13: 978-0812932652
• Product Dimensions: 20.8 x 13 x 2.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,088,483 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

190 of 193 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The most detailed physical world atlas available, February 26, 2000

By 

Frank Paris (Beaverton, OR USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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

I've been collecting atlases for over 30 years, including three different editions of this one. I still have the 8th edition, and now I've lived with the 10 edition for a couple months and am ready to state my opinion, and compare it to previous editions.

First, I'd like to make a general observation about these Times Atlases. They have all carried about 20% of their maps in a vertical orientation. This is all right in atlases that are of a more manageable size, but for a book that weighs 11 pounds, it is burdensome to be flipping it around every few pages. I just had to get that out of the way, because it has always bothered me.

The strength of the Times Atlas of the World has always been the details and accuracy of its physical maps, showing the topographic layout of the land. The colors chosen to do so were more garish in previous editions than in this 10th, and on a first impression, the maps in the 10th edition look strikingly more beautiful. They are works of art. However, I am not convinced that the new colors are more useful. As was pointed out in a review below, what is missing is the sharp contrast from one elevation interval to the next, so it is actually more difficult to figure out the details of the typography, without using a magnifying glass. I think utility was sacrificed to sheer beauty in this case. But let there be no misunderstanding. These maps are probably the most beautiful physical representations of the land that have ever been published at this scale, and due to the digital database upon which the printing was based, without doubt, the most accurate.

Continuing with the theme of this book's utility, I find that I can't see the forest for the trees with this edition. For example, I found it much easier to trace out the sources of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in the old editions, with their use of more contrasting colors. There is almost too much detail at all scales to figure out what's actually going on with the layout of the land. Even plate 37, which is a 1:15,000,000 map of north Asia, there is an almost bewildering amount of data shown in the European regions of this map. Only in the Siberian wastelands can you see what's really going on, and who cares about that except the intrepid geographer (that's me, actually)? I suspect that what is going on here is that the computers that generated these maps have been allowed to run amuck, without enough editorial control and selection over the results.

Since 90% of this atlas consists of physical maps of stunning detail and beauty, I would think that this atlas would appeal most strongly to individuals who were interested in the physical features of the surface of our planet. Yet, what do we get in the opening 60 pages of thematics? Well, it starts out with 14 pages of satellite maps covering the whole Earth. That would seem like a fine start, except very little commentary is provided interpreting what we're looking at. These are beautiful plates, but I don't see that they're very useful. Then we have several obligatory pages showing the Earth's place in the universe, which to my mind is just fluff in an atlas (admittedly, most atlases waste space doing this). Of the remaining 34 thematic pages, less than half are devoted to describing physical features of the world. The rest are more concerned with political and economic issues. There isn't even a map showing world precipitation (which was presented in Plate 2 of the 8th edition), only a tiny map showing the CHANGES in precipitation we might expect by the year 2050, which is highly speculative! I shouldn't be too critical here, because thematic maps have never been the strong suit of the Times Atlas of the World, and were even more impoverished in the 8th edition. But I do wish there were more, of the same caliber as the main body of the work.

On the whole, the selection of the maps is good, although the selection seems to be politically, rather than physically, based. So there are some favorites of mine missing. The 8th edition had superb, separate maps of Alaska and the Canadian Northwest Territories at 1:5,000,000 that are missing in this edition. Also missing are superb 1:500,000 maps of Switzerland and Israel that appeared in the 8th edition. On the other hand, there are great, two page spreads of Poland and Turkey that didn't appear in previous editions.

In spite of my criticisms, I wouldn't be caught dead without this latest, gorgeous 10th edition of the Times Atlas of the World. But I am a map fanatic, and I'll buy maps just because of their aesthetic appeal. This 10th edition has beauty like no other atlas that I have ever seen before. But I do think that, when it comes to usefulness, this atlas is a specialty item, especially at its price. If you're looking for some obscure place, the 220,000 entries in its index will probably let you find it. But unless you do this for a living, there are probably better options out there, unless you just love maps for the sake of maps, like me. Heck, in spite of everything I've said in this review, I have to give it five stars, because there's simply nothing else comparable, for what it is.

125 of 125 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The finest printed world atlas available today., November 16, 1999

By 

Jan-Willem van Aalst - See all my reviews

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

Almost every new major atlas claims to set a new standard in world atlases, but this new atlas is one of the very few that actually do just that. It contains almost 30% more place names than its nearest competitor, the Rand McNally International Atlas. In this respect, it is the largest printed atlas ever published. This tenth edition (dubbed the "millennium" edition) is the first complete redesign since its original publication in 1967, and it shows. The color coding has improved, the number of maps has increased, and, very important, the consistency factor has improved; e.g. the same fonts and same accuracy for all pages. The previous edition has sometimes been accused of being a mere "collection of reference maps". In this new tenth, no less than 72 pages of thematic content have been added, thus making it a really all-round reference atlas. It also contains more large-scale reference maps of more densely populated regions than before, and this noticeably increases the chance of finding just the spot you were looking for. The 217-page gazetteer contains just over 200,000 names. The price is somewhat spend lightly. But to anyone committed to following the world news, planning holiday or business trips, or travellers-in-dreams, you really can't afford NOT to have this atlas - it's certainly worth its price.

74 of 74 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Overall--excellent but needs a magnifying glass, October 20, 1999

By 

Michael Low ([e-mail]) (Huntington Beach, Ca) - See all my reviews

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

Having owned the 1975, 1980 and 1990 editions of this atlas, I have waited for much anticipation for this new edition. It is totally redone with digital cartography.

The front section is completely new and is vastly improved. Many interesting and important thematic maps on climate, population, economics, land cover and the physical earth are up=to=date and very topical. Subjects include global warming and income inequality. One of the best features is the satellite images of each continent.

The maps themselves are an overall improvement from previous editions. One set of fonts is used throughout and the contour coloring is standardized. Previous editions had there own schemes depending on which part of the world being shown.

While coverage of some areas has decreased (esp. Russia) overall the coverage is balanced, with an emphasis on Europe (nearly 1/3 of the map plates). New, larger scale coverage of Poland, parts of China stand out.

Most of the atlas plates are highly detailed, crammed with place names. That's why most will need a magnifying glass since the type is so small on many maps.

The atlas is well-organized with a political map of each continent followed by the detalied map plates. There are no maps of cities or metro areas, unlike in previous editions (which wasted two whole plates on London and Paris). A 200,000+-entry index follows. In the front of the index is an extensive glossary of foreign terms.

I would recommend this atlas as the cartography is superb. If you can live with the tiny print, this is a great atlas.