i like old maps and i own a bunch of old atlases. my oldest one is from the 1890s. my other ones were published at various years between then and now.
last weekend i bought an old atlas in a used book store. i didn't get a chance to look at it very closely before i bought it. i flipped through a couple of pages before mrs. noz and i had to run off to a dinner reservation. the page with copyright information was missing (i'm guessing it ripped out at some point), so i wasn't sure how old it was. based on the maps--the borders, names of countries, etc., it was pretty clearly from between the two world wars and that interested me enough to buy it.
i finally got a chance to look at it in detail this evening and i've been trying to figure out when it was published. like a lot of world atlases, it has population information in the back. the population figures for the u.s. are all from the 1930 census (which means it was published between 1930 and 1940). the population figures from other countries were from various years--mostly in the late 1920s and none were later than 1930. there was also a newspaper clipping shoved between the pages. it was dated march 19, 1944 and talked about the war in the pacific against the japanese (called "the japs" in the article)
i'm guessing the atlas was published some time in the early 1930s based on the dates of the population stats. the date of the article doesn't change that conclusion. it's not that unusual for people to have a 10 year old atlas on their shelf, one that they may have pulled out while reading a news article to help them follow the war in the pacific. also not only doesn't the atlas have the 1940 census data, the borders on the maps are clearly pre-1939. anyway, if possible i'd like to figure out a more specific publication date.
does anyone know of any international border changes or any changes in the name to any country or province that took place in a specific year in the 1930s? if i can figure out a couple of "landmarks" like that (ideally one or two for each year between 1930 and 1939), i should be able to consult the maps and date the atlas. if you know any landmark dates, please leave them in the comments.
