Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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97 of 97 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Best World Atlas But Rather Pricey, 8 Dec 2001
By A Customer
As an atlas craze, I recently bought 3 World Atlases to join my small library. They are 1) Hammond World Atlas : Mapmakers for the 21st Century 3rd Edition 2) Oxford Atlas of the World 9th Edition and 3) The Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World 10th Edition. I already own Rand McNally's Today World (1992), which I think it is a terrible world atlas. First, I received the Hammond and the Oxford Atlases. They were both oversized book and quite heavy. The Oxford weighs more than 3Kg. I was quite impressed by both atlases' fine introductory section and map details. When I received the Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World, I was quite shocked with its size and weight. The Times weighs more than 5.5 Kg and bigger than both Hammond and Oxford. In fact, the Times makes both Oxford and Hammond like a regular book. Upon browsing through all three atlases, I found that all three have their own characteristics. I like the Hammond uses of signs, fonts, and colors. In my opinion, Hammond atlas is very easy to read and very simple to recognize places. The vivid color is the best among three atlases. But the international borders are more difficult to read (in my opinion). The Oxford has probably the best introductory section on World Geography, statistics, satellite images, solar systems, etc. The details are similar to that of Hammond's. Oxford is printed on different type of paper than Hammond's and the Time's (a bit more glossy). I just happen to like Hammond's and Time's paper (matte) paper more. The size of the cities and the signs of places are not as easily recognizable as the Hammond's but still very good. The Times Atlas doesn't have an extensive introductory section like the Oxford's or Hammond's nor does it have large city maps found in Oxford's and Hammond's. It just have the most balanced, most detailed atlas of the world. It has 123 dual-page of mapping, more than the former twos. The Times give more details and attention to small islands and countries outside N.A. and Europe than the former twos. It has more maps of small islands than the former twos. Although I think the colors are not as vivid as the Hammond, the signs and fonts are easy to read and understand and the detail of each map is just incredible. Arguedly, probably the best atlas today. (I haven't seen National Geographic Atlas of the World though) The Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World is not cheap. It is the most expensive among the three but if you want the best world atlas irregardless of price, the Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World is definitely the one to get.
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124 of 125 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Review of the Times Atlas of the World Comprehensive Edition, 21 April 2006
Editions One to Eleven of the Times Atlas of the World used copper engraved plates taken from the famous 5 volume Mid Century Edition. Edition Twelve onwards used brand new computer produced digital plates. This Thirteenth Edition is an update of the Twelfth Edition.
The Old Edition of the Times Atlas aimed to cover the whole world at a minimum scale of 1:5,000,000 using maps from the 1954 Russian Atlas Mira to fill in Siberia at this scale. The present atlas falls a long way short of this goal, and as well as loosing these fantastic Russian plates, also looses the 1:5,000,000 Alaska plate. Other plates to go are those of Switzerland, The Low Countries and The Holy Land at 1:500,000. No longer can we locate Gangelt in the Netherlands where Mercator lived and worked. Also to go are all of the town plans.
The new Edition instead offers more maps at intermediate scales such as better maps of Eastern Europe, Eastern China, Korea, Central Japan, Central South America and South East Australia. Some of the new maps such as that of Poland seem overly detailed. Even with the aid of a magnifying glass, I cannot make out the name of Oswiecim, the new name for Auchwitz, as it is too small and cramped to read.
The style of the maps has also changed. I prefer the old copper plate maps as the contour lines have been omitted from the new digital maps giving a blotchy appearence to the hill colouring. just compare the maps of Sicily from the old and new editions to see how in the old edition, Mount Etna seemed to stand out from the page.
Despite this, the latest Edition of the Times Atlas is in my opinion the best World Atlas currently available. This is due to the sheer breadth and detail of world coverage as well as the quality of the mapping. The index contains 200,000 place names which is greater than any other world atlas available in book form.
Other World Atlases to consider at this size and price are the Rand McNally International World Atlas and the National Geographic World Atlas. They are both American publications. The Rand McNally is better for urban areas but not as good as the Times for general world coverage, and the National Geographic is a large format political atlas very good for North America but not as good for Europe or Asia as the other two. However, if I had to choose my favourite world atlas of all time then it would have to be the Old copper-plate Edition of the Times Atlas of the World.
Andrew Taylor
Worsley, Manchester
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45 of 45 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The grand-daddy of all home atlases, 6 Sep 2006
This is a well-nigh perfect atlas, well designed, up to date and comprehensive. The introductory material putting the Earth in its planetary context is particularly good (although the recent demotion of Pluto to a 'dwarf planet' means that this section will now be out of date until the next edition), while the geology section, explaining the dynamics of various geophysical phenomena such as tectonic plates, earthquakes and volcanoes, does the job of a dozen specialist text-books. The map pages themselves are a model of cartographic clarity, and the index is consistently reliable. All in all, this is the best atlas on the market.
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