Atlas of the Azerbaijan SSR

Summary

This article is a scholarly review of the Atlas of the Azerbaijan SSR, published in late 1963. The atlas contains 218 pages of maps and text in five main sections—introductory, natural conditions, economy, cultural construction, and history—and uses scales of 1:1,500,000, 1:2,500,000 and 1:3,000,000 to combine maps, text, diagrams, and profiles into a comprehensive description of the republic's nature, population, economy and achievements. The review particularly appreciates the atlas's coverage of geology and mineral resources, underground heat, radiation and climate, the Caspian Sea and its coast, agricultural specialization, economic regions, and cultural facilities. At the same time, it identifies shortcomings: the absence of a separate population section; over-generalized population, soil and vegetation maps that are poorly coordinated with relief; some industrial maps lacking raw-material bases; thin transport maps; excessive use of cartograms that weakens geographical content; mismatches between map content and scale; and non-standardized symbols among special maps. The review concludes that, despite these partial defects, the atlas is a major cartographic work demonstrating the high level of geographic science in Azerbaijan and of considerable practical value to planning and government agencies.