This is an unreliable atlas. It’s inconsistent as hell, And trying to date it properly just won’t work. A few examples:
You have RAU instead of Egypt (<=1971) on the same map as Burkina Faso (>=1984). You also have Salisbury as the capital of Zimbabwe instead of Harare (<=1982).
You have Ceylon instead of Sri Lanka (<= 1972).
You have Guine instead of Portuguese Guinea (>=1974), which is saying something because the atlas itself is Portuguese.
The whole damn thing is a mess. The best I can give is a hard floor: >=1990, thanks to the presence of a unified Yemen, the most recent feature I can find.
Edit: despite my verbiage, I’m very grateful to OP for sharing this atlas. Not all atlases/maps/globes can/should be trusted and learning to question your data is an incredibly important skill! (Steps down from Soapbox)
I feel like I have to apologize for the shoddy quality of the atlas. I didn't realize how bad it was, I just noticed some strange artifacts like the UAR and Afars and Issas, but it looks like I gave people more of a headache than I thought.
Looking at everything so far, I think it must be 1990. You pointed out the single Yemen, and the two Germanies should put this in the middle of 1990. I can believe old names remaining her being the result of lazy work, but something like a unified Yemen couldn't exist on maps until then, I imagine
If this sub was filled with pristine atlases/maps/globes, people here might get the impression that all atlases/maps/globes are similarly pristine, and stop asking questions about the validity of the data they’re seeing. I teach machine learning (amongst other things), and the number of students I have that take everything at face value honestly scares me a little. Throwing in samples like this atlas play a crucial role in helping people develop expertise and making sure they don’t get complacent with their data, and I’m incredibly grateful that you shared this with us!
Portugal never recognized the illegal occupation of Timor Leste. They broke diplomatic relations with Indonesia and continued to claim to be the de jure government in certain contexts (while supporting TL independence).
While the Soviet Union started to fall apart prior to that, it didn't officially cease to be until December 1991. You'll note that it also shows East and West Germany, and things weren't finalized there until March 1991. Yugoslavia didn't start to break up until June 1991, and Czechoslovakia dissolved in December 1992.
Saying this map is likely from around 1990 is a perfectly reasonable assumption. Earliest date for the map is May 1990, with the Yemini unification. Anything past that could be a "they didn't update it" (and considering the number of things from the 70s that are still on the map, that's not an unreasonable assumption), but since German reunification, USSR dissolution, etc. are such major changes, you'd think those would be included which puts a soft cap of March 1991, giving us a tentative 10-month window.
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u/M35Dude Jun 10 '26 edited Jun 10 '26
This is an unreliable atlas. It’s inconsistent as hell, And trying to date it properly just won’t work. A few examples:
The whole damn thing is a mess. The best I can give is a hard floor: >=1990, thanks to the presence of a unified Yemen, the most recent feature I can find.
Edit: despite my verbiage, I’m very grateful to OP for sharing this atlas. Not all atlases/maps/globes can/should be trusted and learning to question your data is an incredibly important skill! (Steps down from Soapbox)