Triple Olympic Gold medal winner, Chris Hoy, took time out from signing copies of his new book Heroes, Villains and Velodromes, to receive another item of gold – The Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World. Sheena Barclay (Collins Geo Director) presented Chris Hoy and Richard Moore each with a copy of the atlas. He may not need it to find out how to get to the next Olympics in London, only a cycle ride from his current home in Manchester. He did however comment how useful it would be for planning his next holiday. In December 2008 Chris won another award when he became BBC Sports Personality ... Read more >>

In the final step to resolving a territorial dispute along the border between Russia and north east China, boundary markers were unveiled this week. The two countries reached an initial resolution on the final, small sections of the disputed eastern boundary in October 2004. The largest of these was a small zone near Khabarovsk. Mapping in The Times atlas, 2004 edition, above, had shown both boundaries defining the area - a narrow piece of land defined by the Ussuri and Amur (Heilongjiang) rivers, roughly 50 km long as disputed. The 2004 agreement transferred all of the smaller Tabarovskiy ... Read more >>

Following the recent announcement by the National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC), we have redrawn our Times atlas map of the Arctic and added the ice coverage to the Arctic Ocean. This year’s sea-ice level is the second lowest ever recorded in the Arctic Ocean, after the 2007 record low. The red line on the map shows the sea ice minimum extent for summer 2008 and the dashed orange line shows the sea ice average summer extent for 1979-2000. With the coming winter the ice has already started growing and will continue to be monitored by scientists. The seasonal sea ice fluctuation is seen ... Read more >>