Book reviews: An atlas of Australia

Summary

This is a review of the third edition, first volume of the Atlas of Australian Resources, published by the Division of National Mapping, Canberra. The volume comprises four fascicles, each combining colored maps with substantial commentary, covering four major themes: soils and land use, population, agriculture, and climate. The review notes that the soil map simplifies classification systems to highlight land limitations, while the land use map vividly reveals the imbalance between eastern and western Australia. The population section analyzes the distribution and trends as of 1976, and the agriculture section details the spatial patterns of livestock and cropping. The climate section provides fine-grained analyses of multiple climatic elements. The author concludes that although the atlas is exceptionally rich and well-produced, it suffers from a regrettable publication delay of about ten years, yet remains a documentation source of exceptional interest.