Book Reviews: The National Atlas of Japan.

Summary

This review examines The National Atlas of Japan (1977), an official publication marking a shift from traditional geographic collections to a thematic portrayal of Japan’s socio-economic and cultural landscape. Compiled by the Geographical Survey Institute over nearly a decade, the oversized, bilingual volume contains over 300 maps covering physical features, climate, population, industry, transport, social conditions, education, and more, including arcane data such as bush warbler first warble dates. The review praises the atlas’s superb color printing and fascinating detail, but identifies significant drawbacks: the maps rely on early‑1970s statistics that were already outdated at publication, rendering them unreliable for a rapidly changing society; the use of the kunrei romanization system in the English edition impedes international accessibility. A striking finding is the extreme concentration of national functions in Tokyo and Kinki, highlighting disaster vulnerability. The review questions the practical value of such an expensive and swiftly obsolescent work, especially for libraries, and suggests that a less comprehensive, more compact, and cheaper version, easier to update, would have been more effective, at least for the English version. It ends with a provocative comparison: the cost of the atlas equals a 25‑year subscription to a Japan‑focused journal.