The World Atlas

More than a decade after the publishing of successful Atlas Mira (Атлас Мира) in 1954, the Chief Administration of Geodesy and Cartography in Moscow managed to publish a second edition just in the time for the celebration of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution. After successful first edition published in Russian language was found to be rather limiting to its foreign users, the administration decided to publish the atlas this time also in English simply as "The World Atlas".

The number of maps referring to USSR has been decreased on account of the recently published 'Atlas of the USSR', also the three historical maps originally published in the first edition were also omitted to be included in the 'Historical atlas of the World'. At least 14 new maps have been introduced in this edition, number of maps have been re-compiled, and all of them corrected and revised. Dramatic change has been introduced in the representation of the ocean floor as a result of many Soviet and foreign expeditions carried out recently. Changes in the map symbols and lettering led to increased legibility. The cartographic quality remained quite high.

This second edition has been published in 25.000 copies and was sold for the relatively high price of 42 Rubles (with more than half of the Soviet population earning less than 100 Rubles per month and only 1% of the population earning over 300 Rubles per month in 1968).