A French National Atlas

Summary

This review discusses the first four instalments (16 sheets) of the Atlas de France, a national atlas initiated in 1933 by the Comité National de Géographie. The atlas covers physical geography, biogeography, economic geography, and human/political geography in a planned 80 sheets. The reviewer praises the effective representation of relief, climate, mineral and industrial data, but critically examines the population-density maps, which use a cartogram-like method by communes rather than isopleths. He notes that such a statistical approach may be less accurate than geographic generalization, citing earlier French and British examples. Overall, the atlas is regarded as a valuable contribution to national cartography.