Reviews: An Atlas of Papua and New Guinea

Summary

This review assesses the 1970 Atlas of Papua and New Guinea against the territory’s rapid pre-independence transformation and the limited state of contemporary research. Examining the thematic organization, commentary, and cartographic presentation of its 51 maps, the reviewer emphasizes the atlas’s anthropogeographic orientation and its broad coverage of population, languages, migration, disease, natural resources, agriculture, infrastructure, social services, and research sites. Although the volume contains unavoidable data gaps, inconsistencies arising from multi-author collaboration, omitted subjects such as temperature and plantations, and occasional problems of legibility, it successfully integrates earlier scholarship with original research. The atlas is therefore judged both an indispensable reference for understanding Melanesia and a pioneering interim work between the 1951 resource atlas and a hoped-for future national atlas.