Geographers' A–Z Street Atlas
OCLC 80760632 | |
The Geographers' A–Z Street Atlas, commonly shortened to A–Z (pronounced "Ay to Zed"), is a title given to any one of a range of
Dating old maps
Until relatively recently,[when?] maps produced by the Geographers' (A–Z) Map Company did not include a publication date. It is possible to determine a date range for publication due to the following:
- their first map was published in 1936;
- the only maps produced by them during World War II (1939–1945) were war maps of Europe;
- until 1962, the "Published By" address was 28 Gray's 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.
Coded date
On all A–Z maps, there is a three or four 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 was at least one scheme used, and perhaps a second.
In one scheme, the letters JIHGFEDCBA represent the digits 1 to 9 and 0, so that HFD would be 357, indicating a publication date of March 1957. This seems to have been used on all the company's folding maps, and possibly also those in book form.
Media appearance
The Geographers' A–Z Street Atlas and the story of how
The story of Pearsall's development of the A–Z also inspired the musical The A–Z of Mrs P.
The London A–Z is a plot device in "The Blind Banker", the second episode of the first series of the BBC drama Sherlock when the protagonist is attempting to decipher a book code used by an international smuggling ring based on a book "everybody owns". After attempting to decipher the code using a dictionary and the Bible, Sherlock goes out into Baker Street and appropriates a copy of the A–Z after seeing it being used by a couple of tourists.
2012 Olympics
Geographers' A–Z Map Company was the official supplier of atlases and maps for the
See also
External links
- Official website
- Phyllis Pearsall: founder of Geographers' A–Z Map Company Archived 1 January 2007 at the Wayback Machine
Sources
- Dating old maps Archived 5 December 2006 at the Wayback Machine
- Dating old maps
- Key company dates