Desk Reference Atlas

At a great price, this atlas is just right for finding places quickly and easily. Maps are good. Color is well done. It is easy on the eyes. The atlas is very portable and takes up little space on desktop or shelf. Keep it handy.

A very portable concise world atlas by George Philip is a scaled-down version of the Great World Atlas by the same publisher. The atlas starts with a statistical section, followed by a very good thematic section, called "the world in focus". These attractive pages include photos, graphs, maps, and explanatory text. A section on world flags precede the reference maps, which, too, are scaled down from the larger Philip's atlases. Surface height is indicated by relief coloring (which is rather saturated), but the gray-shading has been omitted here, adding to the legibility of the maps. There is a well-balanced coverage of the world, with Europe and North America getting about the same percentage of maps. The maps are not too accurate, and while some of them show detailed information, others remain quite empty. There is a very basic index-gazetteer of 17,000 names, which is a bit less than most of its competitors of this class. Since there are no urban area maps of the most populous regions, may suburb cities are not included, which is one of the main minor points of this desktop size atlas. For office use, it will probably suffice most of the time, but I would use it sooner for educational purposes, even for children. For serious world news following, there are certainly better alternatives. But all in all this release can certainly compete with other atlases in its class, especially because of the high quality thematic section.