Between 1900 and 2000, more than seventy countries produced a national atlas, an official or quasi-official rendering of the nation-state in maps and accompanying text. This book considers the reasons behind and characteristics of this state-sponsored cartographic explosion. These national atlases mirror and embody some of the important themes of this turbulent century, including the complex connections between nation, state and territory, the rise of state-sponsored science; the growth of nation-states; colonialism and postcolonialism; and the geography of biopolitics.