How Geographic's New Atlas Reflects a Changed World

Chelsea Lane-Miller
for National Geographic News

November 19, 2004

Some 17,000 changes have been made since the previous edition of the
National Geographic Atlas of the World. With the new edition now
on sale, Chief Cartographer Allen Carroll tells what's involved in
tracking a world where the only constant is change.

How do you stay on top of all the changes in the world?

We have a hardworking research staff that keeps careful track of a rapidly changing world in many ways. They're in touch with sources at the United Nations, the U.S. State Department, embassies here in Washington, and many other organizations.

We use multiple sources within academia, government, and the international community. We meet regularly with a group of geographers called the Board of Geographic Names. But we make the final decisions ourselves, weighing these many sources in an effort to be as accurate, authoritative, and objective as possible.

Why are there so many changes, and what kinds of changes are they?

There are all kinds of changes.

Many have to do with a growing and shifting population. For instance, cities are growing rapidly in many parts of the world. As they grow we often need to adjust the size of the "town spot" and the place-name label to reflect a larger population.

Sometimes a country using a non-Western alphabet will change its Romanization policy. Remember when Peking became Beijing? That sort of thing recently happened in South Korea, leading to changes for scores of towns and cities.

For the most part, natural and physical features haven't changed nearly as much as the human ones. But the Aral Sea in Central Asia has shrunk dramatically. That change is caused in part by human activities, though—namely diversion of river water for agriculture.

How can people keep their atlases updated?

Our eighth edition is the only world atlas with a fully integrated Web site. Atlas buyers receive a user name and password and have access to a rich Web site on which they can browse every one of the atlas's political maps, add their own place-names, e-mail maps to friends, order large-format prints, and view dramatic animations that fly you from space into world landmarks.

And we'll post major changes on the Web site, along with small maps showing the updated information that users can print out and literally paste into their atlases.

Borders, names, and even countries can be hotly disputed. How does National Geographic decide who's right?

We work very, very hard to represent the world objectively, fairly, and accurately.

We adhere closely to what we call a de facto policy, meaning that we show the world as it is on the ground, rather than as any one person or group feels it should be. That means that if a country has occupied a piece of territory for some time, we show it as under that country's control, without making judgments about whether that occupation is right or not.

In many parts of the world, we add brief map notes letting people know that a certain area or boundary is in dispute or is claimed by two or more countries. And sometimes we give alternate names or spellings.

How is it that the world's highest and lowest points changed over the past five years?

We show Mount Everest as 29,035 feet [8,850 meters] above sea level; in the seventh edition it was 29,028 feet [8,848 meters]. As far as we know, Everest didn't actually grow. It was measured more accurately using the latest global positioning system technology.

The shores of Dead Sea, on the other hand, have actually receded as water flowing toward it is diverted in increasing amounts for human use.

The atlas includes more than just political and physical maps. "Biodiversity" and "Conflict and Terror" are just a few of thematic maps. Tell us more about these kinds of maps.

We extensively revised and expanded the thematic maps to extend the scope of the atlas and to bring more vital and relevant information to our readers.

We also tried to make these pages as dramatic and colorful as we could. A favorite of mine is "Wildlands," which shows that a surprising 11.5 percent of the Earth's land surface is under some form of protection.

Another favorite on a much less happy topic is "Conflict and Terror." More than a quarter of the world's nations have experienced significant warfare in the past 15 years. Surprisingly, the overall number of terrorist attacks has actually declined since the late 1980s, but their severity, and the fear they engender, has increased.

As much as I love traditional "political" maps, they only show a few features such as boundaries, cities, and shorelines. The world is actually a much messier, richer, and more interesting place, and these thematic pages try to represent some of that incredible richness.

Find out more about the new National Geographic 8th Edition Atlas of the World

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