National Geographic Collegiate Atlas of the World, Second Edition

I wanted one Good Atlas for my Library and everyday use. I am very Happy with this Atlas.

I own quite a few atlases, but my favorite has always been the National Geographic Atlas. I find the cartography in it strikes the best balance between information and esthetics. But if I'm reading a book and want to quickly look a place up, the NG atlas is too unwieldy. The NG Collegiate Atlas is a more convenient size for keeping by your reading chair and grabbing for a quick look-up, rather than finding a table to open up the big atlas. The Collegiate Atlas has the same quality of maps, plus many pages of thematic maps not found in the big atlas. Besides being handy for quick reference, it is a pleasure to browse through. The biggest drawback at first was, as other reviewers have mentioned, the apparent lack of sufficient gutter space; the binding swallows up much of the printing. But in fact the book has been well designed and the gutter space is there; you just have to spend some time breaking in the binding. I spent about a half-hour paging through the book, forcing open the binding on every double spread. (It often required opening the book so wide that the front and back covers touched. This idea may horrify you, but the binding can take it.) Once I've accomplished this all the maps were fully readable. If you're willing to put in the effort, you'll be rewarded with an informative and beautiful atlas that is also easy to handle. If not, you'd be better off with Goode's Atlas.

I found this Atlas very useful. When I research world events and specific areas that things are occurring in this atlas comes in handy. It is easy to use and the maps, graphs and other pertinent statistics are very readable. For quick reference I recommend this atlas.