Atlas of the German Democratic Republic

This article critically evaluates the Atlas of the German Democratic Republic, issued in installments beginning in 1976, with particular attention to its thematic structure, cartographic methods, evidentiary basis, and value for regional studies. The atlas contains 105 maps on 58 sheets and chiefly employs a scale of 1:750,000, allowing direct comparison among individual sheets. Its coverage includes physical geography, industry, agriculture, population and settlement, transport and trade, and educational, cultural, and social affairs. The assessment combines internal analysis of selected maps—especially those concerning chemicals, energy, mining, mechanical engineering, metallurgy, agriculture, and inland transport—with comparisons to the West German national atlas, the GDR’s map series based on the 1971 population, occupation, housing, and building census, and independent statistical and geographical publications. The article finds that the physical-geographical maps constitute the atlas’s principal achievement. Supported by the comparatively advanced tradition of landscape and ecological research in the GDR, they generally display stronger thematic selection, greater complexity, and higher scientific quality than the anthropogeographical maps. By contrast, most economic and demographic maps reproduce conditions of the mid-1960s and were already substantially outdated at publication. Agricultural specialization, industrial development, labor mobility, and housing conditions had changed considerably, while newer census-based maps were not incorporated. A further weakness is the frequent use of verbal or unexplained classifications such as “significant” or “notable,” without absolute quantities, reference values, or clearly stated measurement units. Although some data can be reconstructed from external sources, users should not be required to decode basic information in this manner. The atlas also omits major spatial concepts and policy themes, including regional planning, agglomerations, urban regions, industrial complexes, functional hinterlands, catchment areas, and integrated measures of economic value. These deficiencies reflect not only weaknesses in regional statistics, economic-geographical theory, and thematic cartographic technique, but also the GDR’s restrictive information policy concerning maps, aerial imagery, and locally specific economic data. Consequently, the intended presentation of territorial structures through theoretically informed “complex maps” was only partially realized. The atlas therefore falls short of its ambition to rank among the foremost national atlases. Nevertheless, because comprehensive cartographic information on the GDR was otherwise scarce, it retains considerable importance for regional knowledge, teaching, and reference, including the improvement of educational materials and school atlases in West Germany.