This presentation summarizes the research on geographical atlases in the Croatian language from the first translated school world atlas issued in the late 19th century until the latest atlases published at the beginning of the 21st century. Besides the chronological review of all types of atlases, the research had another objective. It was to determine the similarities and differences in the contents and structure of general world atlases, which might, or might not, have appeared due to the

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... ous cartographic environments. Therefore, the eleven most notable and influential atlases printed in the last sixty years were analysed in more detail, using the comparison method. Specifically, several characteristics of atlases, such as the adherence to encyclopaedic principles, approaches to textual content and structure, origins of maps, usage and writing of geographical names, were investigated. In addition, and for a more systematized presentation, a possible categorization of atlases based on the Croatian atlas corpus has been suggested. According to it, atlases are grouped into several types depending on different criteria. Space criterion refers to the covered area (types: world, national and regional atlases). Purpose criterion refers to the main purpose or targeted users (types: general/comprehensive, school, and thematic atlases). The structure criterion refers to the dominant component of the atlas (types: cartographic, encyclopaedic, and statistic atlases). The country-of-origin criterion refers to the country where the dominant part of the atlas, usually the maps, was made (types: domestic and translated atlases).