Martin - Rated 
Simply the best, clearest atlas you will ever set eyes on. A fantastically made book with beautifully in depth detail.
another 5-star review - Rated
of course this atlas gets five stars - it's simply the best atlas there is. detailed index, up-to-date cosmology pages, interesting articles on "mapping the world", fascinating "geographical information", relevant pieces on "the world today" and, of course, crystal clear maps of every square inch of our planet.
The grand-daddy of all home atlases - Rated
This is a well-nigh perfect atlas, well designed, up to date and comprehensive. The introductory material putting the Earth in its planetary context is particularly good (although the recent demotion of Pluto to a 'dwarf planet' means that this section will now be out of date until the next edition), while the geology section, explaining the dynamics of various geophysical phenomena such as tectonic plates, earthquakes and volcanoes, does the job of a dozen specialist text-books. The map pages themselves are a model of cartographic clarity, and the index is consistently reliable. All in all, this is the best atlas on the market.
Review of the Times Atlas of the World Comprehensive Edition - Rated 
Editions One to Eleven of the Times Atlas of the World used copper engraved plates taken from the famous 5 volume Mid Century Edition. Edition Twelve onwards used brand new computer produced digital plates. This Thirteenth Edition is an update of the Twelfth Edition.
The Old Edition of the Times Atlas aimed to cover the whole world at a minimum scale of 1:5,000,000 using maps from the 1954 Russian Atlas Mira to fill in Siberia at this scale. The present atlas falls a long way short of this goal, and as well as loosing these fantastic Russian plates, also looses the 1:5,000,000 Alaska plate. Other plates to go are those of Switzerland, The Low Countries and The Holy Land at 1:500,000. No longer can we locate Gangelt in the Netherlands where Mercator lived and worked. Also to go are all of the town plans.
The new Edition instead offers more maps at intermediate scales such as better maps of Eastern Europe, Eastern China, Korea, Central Japan, Central South America and South East Australia. Some of the new maps such as that of Poland seem overly detailed. Even with the aid of a magnifying glass, I cannot make out the name of Oswiecim, the new name for Auchwitz, as it is too small and cramped to read.
The style of the maps has also changed. I prefer the old copper plate maps as the contour lines have been omitted from the new digital maps giving a blotchy appearence to the hill colouring. just compare the maps of Sicily from the old and new editions to see how in the old edition, Mount Etna seemed to stand out from the page.
Despite this, the latest Edition of the Times Atlas is in my opinion the best World Atlas currently available. This is due to the sheer breadth and detail of world coverage as well as the quality of the mapping. The index contains 200,000 place names which is greater than any other world atlas available in book form.
Other World Atlases to consider at this size and price are the Rand McNally International World Atlas and the National Geographic World Atlas. They are both American publications. The Rand McNally is better for urban areas but not as good as the Times for general world coverage, and the National Geographic is a large format political atlas very good for North America but not as good for Europe or Asia as the other two. However, if I had to choose my favourite world atlas of all time then it would have to be the Old copper-plate Edition of the Times Atlas of the World.
Andrew Taylor
Worsley, Manchester
A lovely atlas - Rated
I spent some time looking at a few atlases with the aim of getting a good one. The Times was the best I saw overall and I am very pleased with it. For me the maps in an atlas must not only be accurate and informative, but beautiful to look at too. The maps in the Times are some of the best I have seen in the atlases available on the market at the moment. The Collins shows relief more clearly, but the maps are not as beautiful. The whole look and feel of the book is of very high quality and its size is impressive. You will always get the spine of the book getting in the way by nature of atlas construction, but by having such a large format the maps are uncluttered and lovely to look at. The other information in the front of the atlas is interesting and wide ranging. For my money the Times is the best Atlas in general circulation at the moment and I highly recommend it.
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