Integrated national geographical atlases have long since been recognized worldwide as state informational sources. Such atlases are not only informative images of a state in the global informational space, but also its important attribute, a kind of a visiting card.

The first National Atlas of Ukraine is the first work of such a scale; its structure and content meet the standards of the International Geographical Union and the International Cartographic Association, which provides for its consistency with other countries’ national atlases and facilitates Ukraine’s integration into global informational, scientific and cultural spaces.

Due to its collection of maps and charts, the Atlas ensures the integration of facts provided by many fundamental sciences and the official data for the state, which promotes scientific and informative substantiation of the government’s and local government’s decisions, improves innovative solution of socio-economic, ecological and other problems. The Atlas will be able to satisfy the demands of scientific, educational and other establishments and organizations, of national and international community for the information concerning history, natural conditions and natural resources, population, economy and ecological state of natural environment of Ukraine.

The Atlas has been published in Ukrainian. The Addendum with texts supplementing thematic blocks, names and legends has been brought out in Russian and in English.

The concept of the Atlas, its methodology and method of its creation had been worked out at the Institute of Geography of the NAS of Ukraine, as well as the size and content of every block of information. In the process the development of foreign national atlases had been estimated, the objectives for the National Atlas of Ukraine were set, the spheres of its use defined and the decisions on programmatic questions: types, kinds and scales of maps, scientific principles, approaches and methods of their development, levels and objects of mapping etc. adopted.

In accordance with the Program of Creation and Edition of the Atlas, the in-process management was carried out by the Coordinating Committee (approved by the Decree of the President of Ukraine) and the Editorial Board (appointed by the state project originator – the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine).

The informative base of the NAU includes new knowledge and new information amassed by the Institutes of the NAS of Ukraine, national universities, ministries and departments. The work package was accomplished by the Institutes of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (the Institute of Archaeology, the Kholodnyi Institute of Botanic, the Institute of Geography, the Institute of Geological Sciences, the Subotin Institute of Geophysics, the Institute of Demography and Social Studies, the Shmal’hauzen Institute of Zoology, the Institute of History of Ukraine, the Institute of Marine Hydrophysics, the Kovalevs’kyi Institute of Biology of Southern Seas, Ukrainian Institute of Hydrometeorological Research, the Institute of the Ecology of the Carpathians, the Krypiakevych Institute of Ukrainian Studies, the Council for the Study of Productive Forces of Ukraine of the NAS of Ukraine, the Dobrov Center for the Studies of Scientific and Engineering Potential and History of Science), at which the groups of authors prepared sets of maps or provided information in accordance with the type of their institute. A part of maps was prepared by the institutes of the Ukrainian Agrarian Academy of Sciences (National Scientific Center of the UAAS The Sokolovs’kyi Institute of Soil Science and Agrochemistry). Among the contractors compiling special maps were certain universities (the Shevchenko Kyiv National University, the Franko L’viv National University, the Mechnykov Odesa National University, the Vernads’kyi Taurian National University), other establishments (the Institute for the Studies of Diaspora, Ukrainian State Institute of Geological Survey, State enterprise The Central Research and Design Institute of Organization of the Use of Land, the Vysots’kyi Ukrainian Research Institute of Forestry and Agro-Forest Amelioration, the Ministry of Emergencies and the Protection of the Population against the Chornobyl’ Disaster Effects, State Hydrometeorological Service, State Informative Geological Fund of Ukraine, State Geological Service of Ukraine, the Ministry of Environmental Protection).

Included in the Atlas is the information provided by the Ministries of Economy, Finances, Foreign Affairs, Agrarian Policy, Transport and Communication, Culture and Tourism; State Committees on Building and Architecture, Water Management, Land Resources, Forestry, Television and Radio Broadcasting, Statistics of Ukraine, and other establishments: the Broadcasting Corporation of Radio Communication and Television of Ukraine, the National Bank of Ukraine, the State Commission on Securities and Stock Market of Ukraine, the State Tax Service and the State Border Service of Ukraine, the State Department of Fishery of the Ministry of Agrarian Policy of Ukraine, the Engineering Center for Radiohydroecological Studies under the Presidium of the NAS of Ukraine. On the whole, the experts from about fifty organizations participated in the creation of the Atlas.

Academicians-secretaries of the departments of the NAS of Ukraine and Directors of the Institutes of the NAS of Ukraine became scientific advisers on thematic parts and sections. The maps were compiled by 327 authors and supervised by 18 scientific advisers. The inspection of conformance with the Program of Preparation of the National Atlas was carried out by groups of experts created for each thematic part; there were 65 experts in six groups. Twenty-seven reviewers were engaged in the estimation of the ongoing materials (from drawing up the lists of maps to making publisher’s original).

The principles and methodology of the Atlas creation were discussed by scientists at the international conference Geographical Mapping of Countries and Regions (Kyiv, 2001), at the Conference of Ukrainian Geographical Society (Chernivtsi, 2004), the Conference of Russian Geographical Society (Saint Petersburg, 2005), and other scientific meetings.

The structure of the Atlas presents several levels: thematic parts, thematic sections, subsections, maps. The atlas consists of six parts, 33 sections containing 875 maps.

Structure of the National Atlas of Ukraine

Thematic parts	Number of pages in the Atlas	% of the total volume of the Atlas	Number of maps	% of the total number of maps in the Atlas
General characteristic	28	6.4 %	38	4.3 %
History	36	8.2 %	79	9.0 %
Natural conditions and natural resources	150	34.1 %	320	36.6 %
Population and human development	64	14.5 %	181	20.7 %
Economy	98	22.3 %	181	20.7 %
Ecological state of natural environment	32	7.3 %	76	8.7 %

Thematic parts of the Atlas include accompanying texts. Cartographic information is illustrated with diagrams and photos.

In the process of the basic scale of the Atlas determination the authors took into account the degree of survey of Ukraine, the size and configuration of its territory and practical convenience of the Atlas. The basic map scales are 1:2 500 000 (29 maps), 1:4 000 000 (53 maps), and 1:5 000 000 (159 maps). The rest of the maps are compiled at a scale of 1:8 000 000; a few maps are compiled at smaller and other scales.

The content of the maps is based on the data of long-term explorations of Ukrainian scientists and specialists. The socio-economic maps of the Atlas contain statistics provided by the State Committee of Statistics of Ukraine and other public institutions. The data of the First All-Ukrainian Census (2001) were used as the basis for the calculation of the population maps’ indices; the data relating to 1990 and the following years, the crucial years for the development of economy of modern Ukraine, had been used for the compilation of the economy maps. Certain maps and diagrams show the dynamics of basic indices for 10, 50, and 100 years.

Alongside with experts in different spheres of science and practical activity, a lot of interested citizens volunteered to make the Atlas better. The authors and the Editorial Board of the National Atlas of Ukraine express their thanks and hopes that the use of this diverse informative edition will deepen the knowledge about Ukraine.

 

Editor-in-Chief of the National Atlas of Ukraine,
Director of the Institute of Geography of the NAS of Ukraine,
Corresponding Member of the NAS of Ukraine
L. H. Rudenko