The first edition of "The Times Atlas of the World" appeared as "The Times Atlas" in 1895. It was published at the office of "The Times" in London, contained 117 pages of maps with an alphabetical index of 130,000 names, and was an English translation of the second edition (with some maps of the third edition) of the German "Andrees Allgemeiner Handatlas" from the publisher Velhagen & Klasing. More printings followed up to 1900. The Times is a national newspaper published daily in the United Kingdom. ... A monument of cartography is Andrees Allgemeiner Handatlas (after Richard Andree, 1835-1912), published by Velhagen & Klasing in Bielefeld and Leipzig, Germany (founded 1835, taken over by F. Cornelsen in 1954, now fully merged into the Cornelsen company). ...

The second generation of the atlas was issued in 1920 as "The Times Survey Atlas of the World" and was prepared at the "Edinburgh Geographical Institute" under the direction of J.G. Bartholomew (see: John Bartholomew and Son Ltd.). It contained 112 double page maps with 200,000 names and measured 47 x 33 centimetres. John Bartholomew and Son Limited is a long-established map publishing company originally based in Edinburgh, Scotland. ...

The third generation, based on the second, was Bartholomew's famous red five-volume set of folio atlases issued 1955-59 as "The Times Atlas of the World. Mid-Century Edition" by "The Times Publishing Company Ltd." in London (123 leaves of maps, 200,000 names). (Volume One: World, Australasia & East Asia. Volume Two: South-West Asia & Russia. Volume Three: Northern Europe. Volume Four: Southern Europe & Africa. Volume Five: The Americas.)

An edition in one volume (in which the maps were printed back to back - some on a fractionally smaller scale) was published in 1967 as "The Times Atlas of the World. Comprehensive Edition" (123 leaves of maps, 9th edition 1992). This edition also appeared in a German, a Dutch and a French translation. "The successor to [the Mid-Century Edition] in one volume, nevertheless, this work contains greater detail, as well as considerable additional material, with no loss of scale, this being achieved by printing on both sides of the paper, using narrower margins, and including a single index. Some revisions and improvements were made; endpaper keys show which parts of the world are covered by which plates; an international glossary gives the English equivalents of common name-words. Some discoveries by satellite surveys were included."

The 10th - "Millennium" - edition (1999) of the 1967 Comprehensive Edition is in reality the first representative of the fourth generation. In contrast to its predecessors, it is completely produced by means of computer-cartography: "The Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World", published by "Times Books" in London (124 leaves of maps). Contents are slightly different in scale, or in arrangement.

External links

Times Atlas slide show

1895 Announcement in The Times

The 1922 Survey Atlas, and many other maps and atlases, are viewable online at DavidRumsey.com