Canadian Oxford World Atlas

Patricia Morley is professor emerita of English and Canadian Studies at
Concordia University and an avid outdoor recreationist. She is also the
author of The Mountain Is Moving: Japanese Women’s Lives, Kurlek, and
Margaret Laurence: The Long Journey Hom

This compact atlas uses color to very good advantage in conveying data.
The atlas is packed with statistics on everything from the changing
quality of life in the world to patterns of world agriculture, trade,
and tourism.

Africa, with a total of six pages, could serve as an example. Four
pages are devoted to large and small maps color-coded for physical
relief and political data, population, communications, and mineral
deposits. The other two pages, which show unnamed national boundaries
delineated only by dotted lines, use color-coding for statistics on
climate (including temperature and precipitation), land use, energy,
minerals, and industry (the latter including cash crops, farming,
forestry, and fishing). Through good design, an enormous amount of
information is presented in a relatively small space.

There are features not found in older atlases, such as world figures
for environmental damage, atmospheric pollutants, nuclear states and
armament stores, world populations, indigenous peoples and independence,
world energy consumption and production, fresh water supplies, and world
interdependence. A substantial index facilitates the use of all this
information.

The Canadian Oxford World Atlas is an up-to-date, well-organized
resource that would make an excellent addition to any school or home
library.