The new Hammond World Atlas, Fourth Edition is completely updated. It features an exciting new map style with enhanced relief that makes topographic features leap off the page. It has a beautiful new cover design and compelling new thematic articles. One hundred twenty totally new content pages make it the perfect tool for exploring and understanding the world in which we live. Enhanced Terra-Scape maps featuring hypsometric and bathymetric tints vividly display land and ocean floor terrain. Sixty-four new pages of compelling articles on a variety of global concerns are accompanied by stunning photographic and thematic maps, tables and graphs. Forty-eight new pages of breathtaking satellite imagery with interpretive text add further understanding to the earth and its surface. It's easy to use with 110,000-entry Master index, quick reference guide, population chart, world locator, and time zone maps. The Hammond World Atlas, Fourth Edition is a wonderful addition! to any bookshelf or coffee table and sets the pace for other atlases. The fourth edition of the Hammond World Atlas is really a new edition from the "Mapmakers of the 21st Century." Changes from the third edition, published in 2000, include a "Thematic Section" that has a broader scope with different titles; e.g., "Languages" becomes "Global Linguistic Diversity." The double-page spreads in this section have fewer atlas features and look more like encyclopedia articles. Thin colored lines lead readers from words in the text to photos, but sometimes the lines are difficult to follow. The population page in the earlier edition had a world map with a point of light for every 50,000 people, maps showing annual rate of population increase and density, and graphs of other population information. In the fourth edition the population page has three graphs, a small table with growth projections by continent, and text with illustrative photographs but no maps. Hammond's new "Satellite Photo Section" contains 48 pages of beautiful photography illustrating subjects such as environmental problems (a carpet of algae off the Adriatic coast), settlement patterns (Venice and New York), and volcanism (Mount St. Helens). The photographs have an accompanying explanation paragraph; unfortunately, Mount St. Helens is identified as being in Oregon. The name of satellite or imaging process, ground resolution, exposure altitude, and date of the image are also included. The most important part of the atlas, the "Map Section," contains 180 maps in a similar arrangement to the previous edition. The physical maps are from actual digital elevation data using new colors. The map paper is shiny, which is a change from earlier editions. There are new maps--one of Alaska almost fills a page, and Hawaii is a quarter of a page. Maps of cities and metropolitan areas are either inset maps or grouped together on a few pages. The New York City map has been updated since 9/11. There is no city map of Baghdad. The statistical tables are revised, with some cities declining in population. These tables are easy to read, with dots connecting the city to the statistic. The index supposedly still has 110,000 entries. The Canadian territory Nunavut has been dropped from the index, and Nunapitchuk, Alaska, appears to have taken its place. Unlike Oxford's Atlas of the World (see above), Hammond lacks detailed country information, and there are no flags. The fourth edition of the Hammond World Atlas is recommended as a first purchase among medium-sized atlases for academic, public, and high-school libraries. It is a complete revision with new material, and, most importantly, the maps are fantastic. RBB Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved Used Book in Good Condition