Reviews: Atlas of Jerusalem

Summary

This review evaluates the 1973 Atlas of Jerusalem and its companion volume, Urban Geography of Jerusalem, with particular attention to their cartographic scope, scholarly value, technical execution, and political implications. The atlas comprises 108 coloured maps at multiple scales, organized into ten thematic sections covering the regional setting, streets and quarters, historical development, urban structure, land use, public institutions, transport, population, planning, and post-1967 change. The reviewer assesses the maps in terms of clarity, methodology, completeness, and usability. Particular praise is given to the historical maps, geological representation, mapping of urban structural elements, transport and population data, and the detailed documentation of Jerusalem’s functional geography. The demographic maps especially reveal the spatial separation of Jewish and Muslim populations between 1948 and 1967 and the resulting planning challenges. Shortcomings include omitted historical municipal and ceasefire boundaries, inadequate multilingual labeling, limited climatic information, occasional weaknesses in colour differentiation and symbolization, and some unexplained methodological choices. The companion volume supplies essential historical, economic, ecological, transport, and planning context, as well as indispensable documentation of data sources and map construction. However, its multi-author format produces repetition, stylistic unevenness, weak integration with the maps, proofreading errors, and the absence of both an index and a dedicated chapter on political geography. Despite these limitations and possible objections to the atlas as an assertion of Israeli territorial authority, the reviewer concludes that its information is substantially objective and factual. Together, the two works constitute an outstanding benchmark for measuring Jerusalem’s past and future urban change and are considered essential resources for institutions and scholars concerned with the city.