The Atlas of Canada

Summary

This paper presents the history, planning, and production of the new (1958) Atlas of Canada, a milestone in national atlas publishing. It traces the evolution of atlases from Mercator to early single-country collections, emphasizing Canada’s pioneering 1906 and 1915 editions. Recognizing their outdated content and the profound changes in Canada over four decades, the Federal Government launched a new edition in 1948, under the Geographical Branch’s direction. An Interdepartmental Committee defined the atlas’s dual purpose: to depict Canada’s physical resources, their exploitation, and their socio-economic impacts as of 1951, while serving as a historical record. The production process involved creating base maps from a master 1:10,000,000 Lambert Conformal Conic projection, collecting and standardizing heterogeneous data contributed by federal agencies and external experts, and applying rigorous cartographic and artistic standards. The resulting 110 loose-leaf sheets contain 450 maps organized into a coherent geographical narrative: from exploration and early cartography, through physical geography (climate, geology, soils, biogeography), human population, economic activities (agriculture, mining, energy, manufacturing, transport), to institutional and political landscapes. The loose-leaf binding facilitates individual study and future revision. The paper concludes that national atlases are indispensable tools for comprehending a country’s physical and human interconnections, and expresses the hope that the new Atlas of Canada will stand alongside the world’s great national atlases.