With the huge number of atlases available at the current time, it can be hard to decide which one you want for your family. Hopefully our descriptions make that decision process a little easier, and maybe helpful information like the following does too: first published in 1923, this atlas has gone on to become the number-one college reference atlas used in the United States. Must be pretty good, huh? Well, read on and see what you think. Probably the most comprehensive and up-to-date atlas of world geography that we sell, this one will meet all your needs - from a basic reference tool for finding countries, capitals, cities, mountains, rivers, and oceans, to a detailed study on, quite literally, hundreds of different aspects of worldwide geography. A few pages are given over in the introduction to explain a number of key things about maps: longitude and latitude, geographic grid, scale, projections (with closer descriptions of the 10 different types used in this atlas), types of thematic maps, and the map legend (or key). The rest of the atlas is divided into three sections - World Maps, Regional Maps, and Tables and Indexes. The World Maps section is a collection of dozens and dozens of mostly thematic maps, but it also includes a political world map, a physical world map, and three ocean floor maps. The other maps in this section include world landforms; tectonics, volcanoes, and earthquakes; climatic regions; temperatures; pressure, winds, and seasonal precipitation; annual precipitation and ocean currents; oceanic environments; natural vegetation; soils; ecoregions; population density; birth rate / death rate; natural increase / life expectancy; gross domestic product / literacy; languages / religions; urbanized population / nutrition; physicians / HIV infection; major agricultural regions; 20 different maps showing worldwide production of 43 different major agricultural products; worldwide forested lands and products; 13 maps showing the mining of metals, fuels, precious metals, and energy production and consumption; exports / imports; military power / women’s rights; alliances; refugees / major conflicts; telecommunications; earth-sun relationships; and world time zones. Where pertinent, the information on these thematic maps is also shown broken down into production or consumption by country. The Regional Maps section then looks at each of the continents in turn, as well as the major oceans. North America is more closely studied than the others, with 50 different thematic maps of the US providing an in-depth look at the geographic aspects of employment, transportation, climate, and other topics (thematic maps for the other continents range between 8 and 13). Not counting these thematic maps, there are over 130 pages of world reference maps - ranging from continent maps to countries, states, regions, and cities. The final section contains the tables of statistics - world political information, world demographic, world agriculture, world economy, world environment, world comparisons, and principle cities of the world; and indexes - glossary of foreign geographical terms, abbreviations and pronunciations of geographic names, 30,000 longitude and latitude locations, and a subject index that no atlas would be without. Complete, colorful, and up-to-date, this atlas is a very easy-to-use resource that will help every reader or student of geography get to know our world. 372 pgs, hc. ~ Zach