One suspects that the maps were the real reason for writing this book – nearly two hundred of them (accompanying nearly four hundred articles), all to the same scale (along with a few others at a much smaller scale for worldwide coverage); even the software used for making the maps is fully credited (734). Almost every map plots several languages, making this a unique and valuable reference (the maps are vastly preferable to those in Atlas of Languages 1996, see Daniels 1998). It is of course not so comprehensive as Moseley & Asher 1994, but far easier to use because of the compact format.