Saturday, November 13, 2004

Gauteng Street Atlas - 3rd Edition

I bought the third edition of the Gauteng Street Atlas (sold at R179,00) produced by GeoGraphic Maps cc, because it covers most of the urban areas in Gauteng in one book, something which rival companies like MapStudio don't do yet.

There are problems with the maps, with some glaring spelling mistakes ("Centurion" is sometimes spelled "Centurian", and "Brits" as "Britz"). I have noticed accuracy problems, with at least one four-way stop represented as a traffic light, and the traffic lights at the entrance to one township (Olievenhoutbosch) being omitted, along with the rest of the township. Airforce bases are mislabelled as "airports". Metropolitan route numberings are also missing on some pages, which might be a problem for some people. The pages are also quite cluttered with on-map advertising. However, this advertising has a positive side-effect - it can be used to derive landmarks.

Despite the negatives, the book is very useful, and I have replaced two old MapStudio guides (Witwatersrand and Pretoria) with the Gauteng Street Atlas. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to find their way around Gauteng, and doesn't have the money to shell out on MapStudio guides.