{"id":1786828,"date":"2018-12-14T12:30:21","date_gmt":"2018-12-14T17:30:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/?p=1786828"},"modified":"2020-10-06T09:00:36","modified_gmt":"2020-10-06T13:00:36","slug":"the-times-comprehensive-atlas-of-the-world-15th-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2018\/12\/the-times-comprehensive-atlas-of-the-world-15th-edition\/","title":{"rendered":"The Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World, 15th Edition"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>How exactly do you review an atlas?<\/p>\n

The Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World<\/em><\/strong><\/a> (HarperCollins<\/a>) is the flagship of the Times World Atlas<\/a> line. (The others, in descending order of size and price, are the Concise<\/em><\/a>, the Universal<\/em><\/a>, the Reference<\/em><\/a>, the Desktop<\/em><\/a> and the Mini<\/em><\/a>.)<\/span>1<\/sup><\/a><\/span> It’s the latest in a long line of Times<\/em> atlases, tracing its heritage to the original 1895 atlas published by the Times <\/em>and the 1922 Times Survey Atlas of the World<\/em><\/a> produced by the venerable Scottish mapmaking firm, John Bartholomew and Son<\/a>. Like its predecessors, it’s absolutely gargantuan: with the slipcase, it’s 47 \u00d7 32.5 cm (16.5 \u00d7 12.8 inches) in size and weighs 5.7 kg (12.6 lb). Only the National Geographic Atlas of the World<\/em><\/a> is a little bit larger, and even it weighs less than the Comprehensive<\/em> (4.5 kg or 9.9 lb).<\/span>2<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

The 15th edition of the Times Comprehensive Atlas<\/em><\/a> came out on 6 September 2018 (and on 15 November 2018 in North America). HarperCollins has sent me a review copy, and I’ve been trying to come up with something to say about it.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

What can you say, after all, about a big world atlas? It’s a world atlas: it does world atlas things. It has maps of different regions of the world at various scales, plus some informational maps and infographics at the start of the book. It’s awfully big, and needs to be laid flat on a table in order to consult it properly. It’s kind of an anachronism. All of which are true of most world atlases; where they differ is in the details: the physical size of the book, the number of map plates, the scale, the cartographic choices.<\/p>\n

On those terms I could compare it to previous editions, which is something I did when I reviewed the ninth edition of the National Geographic Atlas of the World<\/em><\/a> because I also owned a copy of the eighth. Except in this case I haven’t seen a previous edition: I didn’t own any of the Times<\/em> atlases before this one turned up. Nor, at \u00a3150 a copy, is the Comprehensive<\/em> something I’d rush out to purchase every time a new edition comes out. (How many of us, having bought a world atlas, replace it at some point? Or buy another, for that matter? Is the first atlas you buy also the last?)<\/p>\n

I could also compare it to the competition, except that it’s hard to say what that competition is. The Oxford Atlas of the World<\/em><\/a> is more directly comparable to the smaller Times Concise<\/em><\/a> in terms of physical size and page count. The National Geographic Atlas of the World<\/em><\/a> (the tenth edition of which came out in 2014) is roughly equivalent in terms of size and number of map plates, but it diverges from the world atlas coloured relief map paradigm: it’s the National Geographic<\/em> map division’s distinctive map style, familiar from a hundred folded maps included in the magazine, applied to a book-shaped object.<\/p>\n

Treating a world atlas as a reviewable object on its own terms is going to be a challenge. Let me start by talking about the damn bookmark.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

That Damn Bookmark Is Amazing<\/h4>\n

The 15th edition of the Times Comprehensive<\/em> doesn’t come with a ribbon marker. (I don’t know if earlier editions did.) What it does<\/em> come with is this bookmark, which at 42 \u00d7 14 cm matches the size of the atlas. It’s absolutely brilliant, because of what it has on the back: a legend. All the map symbols, all the typefaces and font sizes, all the lines and squiggles, explained in one spot.<\/p>\n

It’s not like the competition doesn’t do this: both my editions of the Oxford<\/em> (the 14th) and the National Geographic<\/em> (the ninth) put this information on the endpapers. But putting it there means having to flip to the front or end of the book to look up a symbol. When you’re dealing with something the size of a world atlas, that’s awfully unwieldy, even with the smaller Oxford<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Probably because it can be consulted more easily (and more often), the legend on the Times Comprehensive<\/em>\u2019s bookmark is much more detailed. There are different type sizes and symbols for cities depending on their population. Unlike other atlases, these are defined. A city of between one and five million people will appear exactly the same on every map in this atlas (national and administrative capitals are also distinguished by a coloured symbol; national capitals are also in all caps), regardless of where you are on the map<\/em>. The bookmark is a pledge of consistency.<\/p>\n

(The symbols can be fairly hard to tell apart once they’re surrounded by the very busy maps, especially for someone with presbyopic eyes like myself. They’re all circles or squares with dots in them: more differentiation in shapes would be helpful.)<\/p>\n

This brings up another point, about the difference between paper and online maps. The recent trend in online maps is to provide information based on context<\/em>: labels appear and disappear based on your zoom level and your search terms. If you’re browsing\u2014simply poking around the map, not looking for anything in particular\u2014these design choices result in a hot mess. You might be staring at a large metropolitan area and see names of suburbs rather than the name of the conurbation as a whole: no New York<\/em> or Philadelphia<\/em>. (Speaking from experience, there.) There’s something to be said, in other words, for consistency, for making editorial choices and sticking with them\u2014even if sticking with them is basically the result of it being on paper more than anything else.<\/p>\n

Coverage<\/h4>\n

Any atlas will emphasize certain regions at the expense of others: it’s a function of the readership its publisher is trying to sell to. As an atlas published in the United Kingdom, in English, the Times Comprehensive<\/em> does about as you’d expect. Of 132 map plates, 40 are of Europe, comprising 30 percent of the total. Asia is next with 31 plates, or 23.5 percent, followed by North America at 23 plates or 17.4 percent. South America gets only eight plates (six percent), less than the Oceania section (11 plates, 8.3 percent), which makes up Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands.<\/p>\n

Most regional maps run between 1:2,500,000 and 1:5,500,000, depending on the continent; almost all the large-scale maps (1:1,000,000 to 1:1,500,000), with few exceptions, are in Europe. So it’s a bit<\/em> eurocentric, yes, though the foreword takes pains to emphasize the atlas’s edition-by-edition trend away from eurocentricity.<\/p>\n

That’s not to say that the atlas is lacking in detail outside those large-scale maps. Far from it. As a test, I looked for North Sentinel Island<\/a>, Komodo National Park<\/a>, and Hans Island<\/a>: all were present and labelled. (All were also present in the National Geographic<\/em>; the Oxford<\/em> had Komodo Island but not the park, and had the best look at North Sentinel Island, in an inset map of the Andaman and Nicobar islands.)<\/p>\n

Closer to home (literally!), my own village of Shawville, Quebec does not appear in any<\/em> of the atlases (though smaller communities nearby do: clearly a conspiracy is afoot).<\/p>\n

Controversies<\/h4>\n

The Times Comprehensive<\/em> manages cartographic controversies with a bit more subtlety than the National Geographic<\/em>, which prints explanations in red ink. Disputes involving Crimea, Guyana and Kashmir are noted in black sans-serif text that is easy to miss; Transdnistria, Abkhazia and South Ossetia do not stand out; Gaza, the West Bank, Somaliland and Western Sahara get the font for disputed territories.<\/p>\n

Disputed bodies of water are labelled with a bit of finesse: Sea of Japan (East Sea)<\/em> and The Gulf<\/em> (neatly sidestepping whether it’s Arabian or Persian). Parentheses also indicate new, alternative, non-English or deprecated names, e.g. Czechia (Czech Republic)<\/em>, East Timor (Timor-Leste)<\/em>, Swaziland (Eswatini)<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Disputed boundaries and ceasefire lines are dotted in several different and specific ways. The Nine-Dash Line<\/a> is absent; territorial claims are noted on a text label. It’s less informative than the National Geographic<\/em> (which privileges the political more than any other atlas), but it’s less likely to render the map out of date later on.<\/p>\n

Should You Get It?<\/h4>\n

Which I suspect is the point. It’s fair to say that a world atlas\u2014especially a great big one with a list price of \u00a3150 or $200 ($275 in Canada) is meant to be kept for a while. Nobody buying the 15th edition of an atlas has a copy of the 14th lying around: the changes listed in the foreword signal that the atlas is up-to-date and therefore authoritative, not that it’s time to get rid of the old one.<\/p>\n

It’s a reference tool, but not in the same way it was before online maps and reference tools were a thing. This is not something to look things up on. A big paper atlas is about browsing<\/em> and it’s about context<\/em>: big printed maps allow the eye to wander, to see connections. To stumble across places you weren’t looking for.<\/p>\n

It’s useful<\/em>, but not strictly speaking necessary<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Nor by any means is it for everyone, and not just because of the price. An atlas of this size is probably aimed at libraries and institutions rather than individuals. (Libraries should absolutely get this atlas, as well as several others, if they have the budget for it. That bookmark will disappear fast, though.) For individuals the sheer size of the thing is going to be a problem. As I wrote in my 2010 review of the National Geographic Atlas<\/em><\/a>, “Trying to open up this atlas in your lap, or in your hands standing up, is just asking for it. (And if you think wrangling one<\/em> atlas is fun, try wrangling two<\/em> of them at once for the purposes of a review.)” That hasn’t changed. It’s hardly the Klencke Atlas<\/a>, but you do need a large, clean table to consult this thing. It’s not something you pull casually from the shelf. Again: 12.6 pounds.<\/p>\n

But I suspect that the people who would be undaunted and undeterred by such considerations will be found among this website’s readers. You don’t get something like this because you need<\/em> it; you get it because you want<\/em> it. A reference tool can also be an object of desire.<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nThe Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World<\/em>, 15th edition<\/strong><\/a>
\nHarperCollins<\/a>, September 2018
\nAmazon<\/a> (Canada<\/a>, UK<\/a>) | Bookshop<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How exactly do you review an atlas? The Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World (HarperCollins) is the flagship of the Times World Atlas line. (The others, in descending order of size and price, are the… More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"autoblue_enabled":true,"autoblue_custom_message":"","autoblue_shares":[],"autoblue_post_url":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,639],"tags":[30,641],"class_list":["post-1786828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","category-world-atlases","tag-books","tag-times-atlases"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5155,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2017\/10\/new-editions-of-two-smaller-times-atlases-one-very-small-indeed\/","url_meta":{"origin":1786828,"position":0},"title":"New Editions of Two Smaller Times Atlases (One Very Small Indeed)","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"5 October 2017","format":"link","excerpt":"Today marks the U.K. publication of two atlases in the\u00a0Times atlas range: the eighth edition of the\u00a0Times Reference Atlas of the World and the seventh edition of the\u00a0Times Mini Atlas of the World. The\u00a0Reference is right in the middle of the Times atlas range: it's inexpensive (\u00a330 list, compared to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "World Atlases"","block_context":{"text":"World Atlases","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/world-atlases\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/times-reference-8th-220x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/times-reference-8th-220x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/times-reference-8th-220x300.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/times-reference-8th-220x300.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":2814,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2016\/09\/new-edition-of-times-concise-atlas-now-out\/","url_meta":{"origin":1786828,"position":1},"title":"New Edition of Times Concise Atlas Now Out","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"13 September 2016","format":"link","excerpt":"The 13th edition of the\u00a0The Times Concise Atlas of the World came out last week.\u00a0The HarperCollins listing sets out the updates and changes from the previous edition (including changing \"Czech Republic\" to \"Czechia,\" argh).\u00a0The\u00a0Concise\u00a0is the second-largest of the Times world atlases and slots between the\u00a0Comprehensive and the\u00a0Universal in terms of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "World Atlases"","block_context":{"text":"World Atlases","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/world-atlases\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"times-concise-13th","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/times-concise-13th-219x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1820404,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2023\/11\/a-new-edition-of-the-times-comprehensive-atlas\/","url_meta":{"origin":1786828,"position":2},"title":"A New Edition of the Times Comprehensive Atlas","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"17 November 2023","format":"link","excerpt":"The 16th edition of the granddaddy of world atlases, the Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World, is out this fall. It was published last month in the U.K. (on 12 October) and will ship in North American next month (on 12 December). It comes five years after the publication of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "World Atlases"","block_context":{"text":"World Atlases","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/world-atlases\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Product photo for The Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World, 16th edition","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/times-comprehensive-16th-230x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1787973,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2019\/10\/new-editions-of-world-atlases\/","url_meta":{"origin":1786828,"position":3},"title":"New Editions of World Atlases","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"29 October 2019","format":"link","excerpt":"World atlases are still a thing, and the first of this month saw the publication of two new editions of venerable world atlases. 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While Greenland's ice is retreating, it's not nearly by that much, and this is just the sort of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Map Errors"","block_context":{"text":"Map Errors","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/map-errors\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1805575,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2021\/12\/2021-holiday-gift-guide\/","url_meta":{"origin":1786828,"position":5},"title":"2021 Holiday Gift Guide","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"7 December 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Every year at about this time\u2014 (Actually no, check that, this year I\u2019m late; and last year I didn\u2019t post one at all except for this stationery guide.) \u2014I post a gift guide that lists some of the noteworthy books about maps that have been published this year. 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