Concept in Definition ABC

The term atlas is known as the set of maps of different regions of the planet that have been edited and published jointly in a book or collection. Although the atlas has lost importance today compared to the availability what in Internet there is images cartographic, has historically been a very important type of material and used not only by cartographers but also by navigators, astronomers, merchants and intellectuals who needed to have the different maps in group.

Since time immemorial, man has made graphic projections of the universe on what are known as maps. When the mapping began to develop massively from the knowledge of much of the planet at the time of Renaissance, scientists, astronomers, cartographers and navigators had to accumulate all that knowledge, categorizing it and uniting it according to their interests or needs. The atlas then emerges as a means to concentrate all the necessary cartographic information.

Atlases can vary in their types according to the maps they contain. While some, the most common, show representations of relief and division

politics of the world and its countries, others can also show economic, climatic, population data, and even differentiate by the scope or detail of them since some maps may be national and others regional, that is, with more detail and close up. Other atlases can also be historical, which means that the maps included there will not be exactly equal to the current ones if not that they will show us the political and territorial variations of a space throughout the weather.

It is estimated that the name of atlas comes from that Greek mythological character who bears the same name and to whom Zeus entrusted the punishment of carry the planet on their shoulders for eternity, thus relating to the mapping from the presence of the Earth What Unit geographical area to be represented on maps for greater and better knowledge of it. In addition, it can also be noted that Atlas is the name given to the Mountain range It runs from Tunisia to Morocco to North Africa. For the moment of greatest development of Greek culture, this region of Africa could well be understood as the end of the world, hence perhaps the myth of the character.

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