HUMAN GEOGRAPHY

Human Geography

Human Geography

Introduction

When National Geographic published its first atlas of the world for over 35 years, the world was indeed a different place. To meet today's world - including the oceans, stars, climate, natural resources, and more - National Geographic has published its seventh edition of the Atlas of the World (Clifford, 2009).

Discussion and Analysis

With each new edition, National Geographic strives to make its atlas more than just maps. Learn that the coldest place in the world is the Plateau Station in Antarctica, where the average daily temperature is below 56.7 degrees Celsius, the most populated continent is Asia, with more than 3.6 million people, or 60.8 percent world's population, the driest place on earth is the Atacama Desert in Chile, a flight from New Delhi to Rio de Janeiro, covering 14,080 km, life expectancy in the Republic of Zambia is 37 years, and the rate literacy in Turkmenistan is 98 percent (Cloke, 2004).

Browse the pages of this impressive book and you will feel like the world is literally in your hands. Full-page spreads are devoted to more than 75 political and physical maps (political maps show the boundaries, physical maps show mountains, water, valleys and vegetation). There are many new details to be found in this edition, including increased use of satellite images, an especially helpful feature when researching the most remote regions of the earth, more than 50 updated political maps that record the impact of war, revolutions, treaties, elections and other events, and use of the latest research on topics such as tectonics, oceanography, climate and natural resources. The size of the Atlas index - 134 pages - offers insight into how much information is packed in more than 260 pages. The book is so great physically, in fact, that when opened, the reader is looking at three square feet of information, an area larger than many TV screens. The potential uses of this book for a very large family, to settle an argument easy to complete a school report. In the end, however, the atlas is mostly about maps. Pages and pages of maps. Maps that force us to see how wonderful and dynamic world. The maps remind us of where we've been and where we still like to go.

Reflects all the recent geopolitical changes, including the reversion of Zaire to the Democratic Republic of Congo with renamed provinces, the return of Hong Kong and Macao ...