Maps have been around in some form or other since humans first understood the need to record their physical space, and for the past hundred years, the National Geographic Society has been at the forefront of mapmaking. This Fourth Edition of our popular Family Reference Atlas of the World brings you the world and its marvels-through maps. Using the latest technological advances, satellite data has been compiled to create some 1,400 images-maps, diagrams, graphs, and tables, as well as National Geographic's signature color photographs-to allow you to examine the most remote corners of the globe. In an era when political, health, climatic, and environmental crises anywhere on the globe can affect our daily lives, maps provide a time-honored way to navigate the realities we face. With this atlas, you hold a powerful yet accessible tool to understanding the interplay of global forces at work in the fast-changing but always miraculous planet that is our home.