Atlas of the Armenian SSR
Атлас Армянской ССР
Armenia · Академия наук Армянской ССР · 1961
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Cartography: Atlases
Unknown · 1964
This paper examines the unique cartographic and editorial challenges encountered in producing the first Hebrew edition of the Atlas of Israel (1964), a comprehensive work comprising 102 sheets and 720 large-scale maps. Although modeled on other national atlases, the Israeli atlas diverged significantly due to three primary factors: the country's rapid demographic and cultural transformations, its distinctive geographical position and elongated shape, and the uneven reliability of its documentary base. The most influential factor was the dramatic 600% population increase over two generations, which drove extreme changes in agriculture, economy, communication, and services. To capture this dynamism, the atlas employs time-sequence map series for most topics rather than single static representations, and includes supplementary maps to update content. Geographically, Israel's location on the arid zone boundary creates sharp north-south contrasts, with highly diverse physical, human, and economic elements in the north versus a monotonous south, compounded by varied topography over small altitude ranges. These spatial characteristics demanded specialized cartographic solutions. Finally, the area's political history under Ottoman, British, and Israeli administrations within 50 years resulted in data that differ greatly in coverage and reliability. The paper details how these interrelated problems shaped the atlas's content, design, and production.
Regional atlases today and tendencies of their development
Salichtchev, K. A. · 1964
This paper examines the evolution and contemporary tendencies of regional integrated atlases through a comparative analysis of major publications from Germany, Austria, France, the United States, Canada, and the Soviet Union. The study employs a systematic content assessment, using a comparative table to quantify the thematic composition and balance of atlas sections—nature, population, economy, and culture—across nineteen historical and modern atlases. The analysis reveals that early German regional atlases, such as the Atlas of Pomerania, displayed progressive cartographic techniques alongside politically biased content. The post-war German Federal Republic's Planning Atlas series adopted a unified framework with a pronounced statistical-economic orientation but often neglected the synthesis of natural conditions and lacked internal map consistency. Austrian atlases, exemplified by those of Lower Austria and Salzburg, exhibit a strong local-studies tradition, featuring extensive historical, settlement, and cultural maps, yet they reveal weaknesses in demographic and socio-economic coverage and occasional cartographic shortcomings. More recent atlases from France, North America, and the Soviet Union show increasing practical applications for regional planning and resource management, yet the balance between analytical detail and geographic synthesis remains inconsistent. The paper concludes that regional atlases are increasingly oriented toward practical planning needs, but their development requires greater emphasis on interdisciplinary integration, improved comparability of data across maps, and a more systematic incorporation of natural conditions to support comprehensive territorial analysis.
Criticism and Bibliography. Atlas of the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic
Саркисян, Г. Н. · 1962
This paper presents a comprehensive review of the Atlas of the Armenian SSR, a complex cartographic work of scientific-reference character published to mark the 40th anniversary of Soviet power in Armenia. The research aim is to analyze the atlas’s structure, content, cartographic methodology, and practical significance. Using a descriptive-analytical approach, the study examines all sections—physical geography, geology, climate, hydrology, soils, vegetation, population, industry, agriculture, general economics, and history—comprising 182 maps (143 main and 39 supplementary), numerous insets, profiles, and explanatory texts. Key findings highlight the atlas as the second comprehensive national atlas of the USSR and the first relatively large-scale atlas (1:1,000,000) for a mountainous region. Its distinctive features include strong practical orientation (agroclimatic, fenological, engineering-geological maps), complex depiction of interrelated phenomena on single sheets, innovative representation of territorial-production complexes (e.g., the Sevan–Hrazdan energy-irrigation system), and historical depth spanning from the Urartu state to Soviet-era repatriation of Armenians. The bilingual publication (Armenian and Russian) and creation of new Armenian cartographic fonts are also noted. The atlas successfully meets Lenin’s methodological requirements for a Soviet atlas by showing phenomena in their historical development and interconnections. The conclusion affirms that the Atlas of the Armenian SSR is a landmark encyclopedic work, a model for large-scale regional atlases, and a major contribution to Soviet cartography and cultural life.
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