The North Carolina Atlas will be an invaluable aid in any effort to better comprehend the past, present, and future of our changing state. Using text and more than three hundred maps, charts, and photographs, the book offers an in-depth yet accessible look at the state's physical environment, history, population, and economy as well as such other aspects of life as government, politics, education, health, culture, and outdoor recreation. Tracing the shifts and patterns that have made North Carolina what it is today, the book also forecasts where these and other trends are taking us in this new century.

"An excellent and very useful book. Anybody who wants to understand North Carolina ought to own the 2000 Atlas. . . . Pick any important North Carolina topic. Bank of America or First Union or William Friday or Hog Farming or Davidson College, for instance. The 2000 Atlas has something important about all of these topics. . . . A great achievement and an essential reference book. Doug Orr and Al Stuart and their colleagues deserve the reward of heroes for sticking to the monumental task of pushing this work to publication." -- Charlotte Observer