The atlas of Australian resources

Summary

This article, written by Conrad Frenzel, chief editor of the *Australian Resources Atlas*, comprehensively elaborates on the role of thematic cartography in geography and the process of creating this large-scale national resource atlas. It opens with a discussion of the importance of maps in geographical description and interpretation. Although ancient cartographers were geographers, the subsequent development of precise topographic maps by geodesists once relegated cartography to a neglected branch of geography. However, thematic cartography—namely,