Book review: National atlas of Hungary

This review assesses the 1989 National Atlas of Hungary against its 1967 predecessor, focusing on how effectively it represents the transformations of the preceding two decades and conditions in the mid-1980s. Comprising 609 maps and extensive bilingual commentary, the atlas systematically covers Hungary’s natural environment, population, settlements, social infrastructure, production, services, environmental protection, and regional planning. Its principal innovations include stronger historical and process-oriented analysis, greater use of evaluative maps, typologies and regional classifications, and a shift from purely quantitative indicators toward qualitative assessments of economic and social performance. The review nevertheless identifies serious limitations in the underlying statistical system. Census and employment data inadequately capture commuting, mixed economic activities, private-sector production, and informal or semi-official phenomena, while subsidies and redistribution obscure actual profitability and efficiency. Environmental themes receive unprecedented cartographic attention, but insufficient integration and unreliable basic data prevent comprehensive assessments, particularly of the balance between water resources and demand. The atlas also tends to evaluate progress against the 1960s rather than contemporary European standards, thereby understating infrastructural deficiencies. The review concludes that future national atlases must respond to market-oriented transformation through new indicators, including value added, capital and labour markets, allocation, and unemployment. Their continued relevance depends on integration with geographic information systems, regularly updated official and semi-official databases, more critical environmental synthesis, and sustained research into both known gaps and previously unrecognized relationships.