Cambridge World Atlas Book

The Cambridge World Atlas is truly a resource for the 21st century, exploring critical issues of the modern world through rich, detailed thematic maps. Covering diverse, contemporary topics ranging from energy consumption, carbon dioxide emissions, and telecommunication, to debt burden, income inequality, and women in government, the Cambridge World Atlas helps readers analyze and interpret important global trends in deep, meaningful ways.

Of course, everything you would expect to find in an atlas from the world's most prestigious academic publisher is here. Accurate, easy-to-read physical maps and up-to-date political maps feature beautiful, full-color illustrations and photographs. World, continent, country, and regional maps are all meticulously crafted by world-renowned cartographers, using academically rigorous standards.

In the back of the atlas is a 40-page statistical gazateer with up-to-date, reliable statistical data on 198 countries. Here you will find information on each country's size, population, capital city, administrative organization, languages, religions, currency, and major cities. In order to make inhabited external territories easier to find, they are listed under their own name as well as under their mother country.

There is also an alphabetical index with over 20,000 place and feature names, serving as an easily accessible inventory of all the places and geographic features depicted in the 190+ maps of the atlas. The Cambridge World Atlas follows the international place name standards set by the United Nations, but also lists countries separately by their local names, making it easier for you to find a location no matter what name you know it by. In addition, there is a glossary that explains key terms.

In order to help readers get the most out this comprehensive reference work, there is a 10-page section titled How to Read and Interpret Maps. It begins with a brief history of atlases and explains how they have evolved over time, discussing all of the important decisions that go into drawing maps and creating atlases. Readers will learn about scale, problems of distortion, types of projections, generalization, common signs and symbols, geographical terms, and much more.