Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
The most important part of the Czech atlas production is definitely formed by
national atlases, so it is important to mention older works. Among the Czechoslo-
vakia national atlases include: Atlas of the Czechoslovak Republic (Atlas republiky
ˇ
eskoslovensk
´
R
ˇ
S—1935), Atlas of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (Atlas
ˇ
eskoslovensk
´
socialistick
´
republiky
ˇ
SSR—1966) and Atlas of the Slovak
Socialist Republic (Atlas Slovensk
´
socialistick
´
republiky—1980). So far the
only atlas, which is known as a national atlas in the history of independent Czech
Republic is the Landscape Atlas of the Czech Republic (Atlas krajiny), which was
released in 2009. All these atlases presents different issues and national maps.
As mentioned, after 1993 the cartographic production was based on cartographic
works revised from the previous period and later, mostly at the turn of the millen-
nium, in the Czech Republic began the mass production of foreign publications
translated into the Czech language. Foreign works translated into Czech and
presented as geographical atlases are mostly popular encyclopedias, or they are
not primarily cartographic publications, but they contain some maps, and therefore
in the Catalogue of the Czech Republic they are identified as cartographic docu-
ments. Many foreign works is also a creation for small children, but there are also
genuine Czech products. Perhaps the most controversial issue in the Czech atlas
cartography is taking over foreign works presented as “School atlas”, such as
atlases from Ikar (2003) and Svojtka & Co. (2004 and 2009), which were translated
from “Student atlas”, “Kingfisher children
s atlas” and “World atlas”. These works,
of course, do not follow the content ingrained in the Czech school atlases. They are
not adapted to the Czech curriculum for primary and secondary school (now the
School educational programs), and at the time of publishing they had not clause of
the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic. But because
they were presented as “School atlases” many users have been misled.
Statistics in Table
1
show the information obtained from the Union Catalogue of
the Czech Republic and from the Catalog of the Czech National Library. In any
work there is not detailed expert evaluation of all these cartographic works and
because of processing such a vast number of publications and technical and timing
reasons, such an analysis is basically impossible. Nevertheless, we can distinguish
traditional cartographic works and atlases that are unique in its concept or theme.
Such works are gaining awards from the Cartographic Society of the Czech
Republic in the competition Map of the year. This award was given for example
to the School Atlas of the Today World in digital form (
ˇ
koln´ atlas dneˇn´ho svˇta,
TERRA-KLUB, 2011) or Climate Atlas of Czechia (Atlas podneb´
ˇ
eska, 2007).
Production of atlases is significantly affected by the production of one road-
atlas, which was published for various companies (with different ISBN) in years
2007 and 2009. The most important producers of Czech cartographic atlases are
Kartografie PRAHA and SHOCart publishing houses. Roughly a fifth of total
amount is represented by small producers or publishers who publish cartographic
atlases irregularly and in a limited number of titles.
Atlas production in the Czech Republic is comparable to the world
'
s best
cartographic production. This is evidenced by a number of international awards,
such as honorable award of the Commission of the International Cartographic
'
