Geographer's A–Z Street Atlas

Infobox Book
name = London Geographer's A–Z Street Atlas
title_orig =
translator =


image_caption = Cover of 2004 edition
author = Geographers' A–Z Map Company
illustrator =
cover_artist =
country = United Kingdom
language =
series =
subject = Street map
genre =
publisher = Geographers' A–Z Map Company Ltd.
pub_date = 1936 "(first edition)"
english_pub_date =
media_type = Print (Paperback)
pages = 430 pp "(seventh edition)"
isbn = ISBN 9781843483281
oclc =
preceded_by =
followed_by =

The "A–Z", or in full, the "Geographers' A–Z Street Atlas" is a name given to any one of a range of atlases of streets in the United Kingdom currently produced by Geographers' A-Z Map Company Limited. The first atlas, of London, was originally compiled in the 1930s by Phyllis Pearsall. The company she founded now publishes street maps of many cities and towns in the UK.

Dating old maps

Until quite recently, the maps produced by the Geographers' (A-Z) Map Company did not list their publication date, so dating them can be quite hard. A few things that can help are:
* Their first map was published in 1936
* There were no maps produced by them during WW2 (1939-1945)
* Until 1962, the "Published By" address was "24 Grays Inn Road, Holborn, London"
* From 1962 to 1992, the "Published By" address was "Sevenoaks, Kent"
* From 1992 onwards, the "Published By" address is "Borough Green, Kent"
* In 1972, the company name was changed from "Geographers' Map Company" to "Geographers' A-Z Map Company"

Cartographic date

On all their maps, there is a 3 or 4 letter code in one of the corners, often the one containing the key. These letters represent numbers, which are the cartographic date, in the form (M)MYY. There is at least one scheme in use, but possibly also a second.

One scheme is JIHGFEDCBA, for the numbers 1 through 9 and 0, so that HFD would be 357, or March 1957. This seems to be used on all of their maps not in book form (it may be used in the book form ones, but that has not been confirmed).

Media appearance

The Geographer's A–Z Street Atlas and the story of how Phyllis Pearsall came to write the first edition covering London was featured in a 2005 episode of Nicholas Crane's "Map Man" TV programme. This programme revealed the interesting information that on all their maps A-Z print a non-existent trap street so that they can tell if a map has been illegally copied from theirs, a technique used by several publishers of reference works (see fictitious entry).

External links

* [http://www.a-zmaps.co.uk/ A–Z Maps - official site]
* [http://www.transki.co.uk/walk/atoz.htm Phyllis Pearsall: founder of Geographers' A–Z Map Company]

ources

* [http://www.waml.org/datecode.html#geograp Dating old maps]
* [http://www.ianbyrne.free-online.co.uk/dating.htm Dating old maps]
* [http://www.designmuseum.org/design/phyllis-pearsall Key company dates]