The Bosatlas is a Dutch

atlas An atlas is a collection of maps; it is typically a bundle of maps of Earth or of a region of Earth. Atlases have traditionally been bound into book form, but today many atlases are in multimedia formats. In addition to presenting geographic ...

. Used in most schools, it remains the best selling atlas in the Netherlands.

History

The atlas was started by Pieter Roelf Bos, a

Groningen Groningen (; gos, Grunn or ) is the capital city and main municipality of Groningen province in the Netherlands. The ''capital of the north'', Groningen is the largest place as well as the economic and cultural centre of the northern part of t ...

teacher. The first atlas was published in 1877 with the name ''Bos' Schoolatlas der geheele aarde (Bos's School Atlas of the Whole Earth)''. Later editions were commonly called ''Bosatlas''. Bos continued to look after the production of the atlas until his death in 1902: his final production was the 15th edition. His successors were: J.F. Niermeyer (1903-1922, 16th up to and including the 27th edition), B.A. Kwast (1923-1936, from 1928 onward in cooperation with P. Eibergen, 28th up to and including the 35th edition) and P. Eibergen (1937-1955, 36th up to and including the 39th edition). The last of his successors to take individual responsibility for the Atlas was Dr. F.J. Ormeling (1956–1976, 40th up to and including the 48th edition). Since the 49th edition (1981) responsibility for the atlas has been collectively attributed and it is the publisher's name that has been highlighted in the atlas and associated marketing material. The reason for first publication was the introduction of

geography Geography (from Greek: , ''geographia''. Combination of Greek words ‘Geo’ (The Earth) and ‘Graphien’ (to describe), literally "earth description") is a field of science devoted to the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and ...

in (former) Dutch high schools. The maps were originally drawn by hand. The publisher was Jan Berend Wolters of Groningen, whose firm continues to publish the atlas as Wolters-Noordhoff.

Variants

Different versions of the atlas are (or were) published, as follows. *De Grote Bosatlas, continuation of the Bosatlas *De Basis Bosatlas (until 2003 named De Kleine Bosatlas) *De Junior Bosatlas *Mijn Eerste Bosatlas *De Wereld Bosatlas, a big atlas *De Bosatlas van Nederland *De Bosatlas van Fryslân *De Bosatlas van Amsterdam

Frisian Bosatlas

In November 2009, a Frisian edition, ''De Bosatlas van Fryslân'' was published, completely dedicated to the Dutch province of

Friesland Friesland (, ; official fry, Fryslân ), historically and traditionally known as Frisia, is a province of the Netherlands located in the country's northern part. It is situated west of Groningen, northwest of Drenthe and Overijssel, north of ...

, with historical and modern maps, aerophotography, background information on hundreds of topics and a complete set of topographical maps,

scale Scale or scales may refer to: Mathematics * Scale (descriptive set theory), an object defined on a set of points * Scale (ratio), the ratio of a linear dimension of a model to the corresponding dimension of the original * Scale factor, a number ...

(1:25 000)."Friese Bosatlas niet aan te slepen"
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Non-Dutch editions

Editions of the atlas have also been published in Belgium (both Dutch and French),{{cite book , author=J. Charlier , author2=D. Charlier-Vanderschraege , author3=M. De Roeck , author4=J. Lambion , name-list-style=amp , title=Le Grand Atlas, year=1989 , publisher=De Boeck-Wesmael, location=Bruxelles, isbn=2-8041-1163-6 France, Sweden and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The standard "Grote Bosatlas", although a world atlas, provides a greatly extended level of detail and variety in respect of the Netherlands. With the non-Dutch editions this greater level of national focus is switched away from the Netherlands in favour of the country for which the edition has been prepared.

External links

Bosatlas external site

History

Variants

Frisian Bosatlas

Non-Dutch editions

External links

Other sources and further reading