Packed with more than five hundred stunning illustrations, charts, diagrams, one thousand photographs, and superb up-to-date maps, this reference offers the ultimate illustrated guide to landscape, culture, peoples, climate, and facts about everyday life.From BooklistThis excellent, colorful summary of the earth, its land, plants, animals, and human life, is the newest offering from DK, a name synonymous with beautiful pictures and accurate, if terse, information.The introductory matter includes an overview of plate tectonics, biomes, population, and politics. The book divides the world into continents, then treats single countries or groups of countries. The format is uniform: there are map pages and country pages. The map pages have a relief map of the section of the continent with a locator map placing it in relation to the continent. There is climate information about a few selected cities with average temperature and rainfall in January and July. There is a box of superlatives (highest, lowest, longest, etc.) and another of "Things to Look For." National flags are reproduced in full color. The country pages treat the culture of the country with color photographs and illustrations with captions. Fact boxes for each country include Capital, Area, Population, Language, Religion, Government, Currency, Adult Literacy, Life Expectancy, People per Doctor, and Televisions and a small outline map of the country in relation to the continental section. Entries range from one paragraph and two captions for small countries to eight pages for the U.S. Most large countries have a full page. The Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans and the Arctic also have individual entries. A reference section uses maps to explain Political Systems, International Organizations, World Religions, Health and Education, Rich and Poor, and World Trade. There is a glossary (no pronunciation guide), a gazetteer, and an index.The worst that can be said of this book is that there is simply not enough information to do research with any depth. The best is that the book is colorful, attractive, and has current information that middle-school students and up will find fascinating. That all this information is easy to find and relatively inexpensive should put this on the A list of most school and public libraries. For similar titles, see our "Countries of the World" article [RBB Ag 96].