A Brief Review of the *National General Atlas*: Congratulations on the Publication of the *General Atlas of the People's Republic of China*

Summary

This paper offers a commentary on the newly published National General Atlas of the People’s Republic of China, a monumental work compiled under the State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping. The review highlights the atlas’s innovation, comprehensive and well-organized content, and high-quality printing. It emphasizes the atlas’s utility for national and provincial leadership in understanding the geographic, topographic, and geomorphological distribution across China. Set against the backdrop of a market economy where maps increasingly serve economic development and daily life, the publication fulfills a long-standing proposal by the late cartographer Zeng Shiying, who pioneered scientific compilation of large-scale national atlases in China with his Shenbao Atlas in the 1930s. The author argues that the new atlas surpasses its predecessor, exemplifying progress in cartographic science. The paper then traces the evolution of mapmaking techniques from manual to automated processes, noting significant post-1949 advancements, the integration of computers, and the emergence of multimedia systems that combine text, graphics, animation, sound, and video to produce multifunctional effects. Looking forward, it concludes that atlas compilation is moving toward expert systems, and with continued scientific and economic development, fully automated map production in China is an imminent reality.