Preparation experience of the edition «Ukrainian Carpathians. The complex atlas of automobile tourist»

The article introduces the edition «Ukrainian Carpathians. The complex atlas of automobile tourist». An actuality of a complex mapping of attractive tourist areas in Ukraine is noted. The structure of the atlas that reveals the natural, historical, ethnic, cultural and economic aspects of the Carpathian Mountains is analyzed. The approaches to clarify the names of geographical objects, altitudes of mountains, roads, etc, are noted. New scientific views on the nature and on the population have been included in the atlas. Ukrainian Carpathians are among the most attractive tourist areas in Ukraine along with the Crimea, the coastlines of the Black and Azov seas, the cities of Lviv, Kyiv, Odesa, Kamianets-Podilskyi, Chernivtsi, etc. At the same time, Ukrainian mountains are most deprived of good tourist reference books, atlases and travel guides. So NVF «Karty i Atlasy» (SPC «Maps & Atlases») tried to fill this gap by its edition. The structure of the atlas is complex and can be divided into three parts: 1. Description of the natural environment, history, people and economy with 15 thematic maps. 2. A Travel topographic map in scale 1 : 200 000 and maps of 9 cities of the Carpathian region. 3. Reference of interesting objects for tourists. When preparing maps of the atlas a considerable attention was paid to clarification of the names of geographic objects, including mountains, and unification of altitudes, much of which was distorted by soviet mapmakers. Some names are given in two or more versions as they are used by tourists, including historical names of objects. It is also important to mention the process of decommunisation of settlement names (three villages have been officially renamed). The Atlas was first introduced in the following specification: the Carpathian Mountains are divided into six parts (not five), including Karpatske planine in Serbia; Carpathian Mountains are stretching from the town of Hainburg an der Donau in Austria to the city Niš in Serbia (not from the city Bratislava to the Iron Gates on the Danube river), etc.