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A National Atlas is a fundamental and complex geographical atlas containing a synthesis of contemporary scientific knowledge in the field of physical, economic, cultural and political geography of the country under consideration. It serves as a reference tool by adding essential value for the public manager, and by providing knowledge of the different aspects that define the territory in business activities; at the same time, it provides an educational reference point for the wider population.

The first experiences in the creation of a national atlas at the Geographical and Statistical Institute (IGE) date back to 1880, when General Ibáñez e Ibáñez de Ibero, Director of the Institute, launched the project for the creation of the "Geographical and Statistical Review of Spain", with the aim of updating it annually.

It was a major project, and as Ibáñez de Íbero pointed out in the prologue, in order to be carried out successfully, "the collaboration of the other management centres was indispensable, as was the collaboration of the authorities of all orders, including the prelates, and of some scientific establishments".

Despite the intention to update and reprint, it took almost a quarter of a century for a new Reseña Geográfica y Estadística de España to be published, this time in three volumes, published successively in 1912, at the beginning of 1913 and at the end of 1914. The great innovation of this edition was the inclusion of some thematic cartographic sheets, statistical graphs and topographical profiles. This was possible, among other factors, due to the fact that the increase in resources at the Institute allowed the creation of the Graphic Arts Section, which did not exist when the first edition of the Reseña was produced.

In 1930, a Royal Order was issued establishing the need to publish the Statistical Geographical Atlas, on an annual basis, and this work was assigned to the Permanent Commission for the Economic Map of Spain, which belonged to the Higher Geographical Council of the Spanish Geographical and Cadastral Institute (formerly the Geographical and Statistical Institute).

The need to have works of synthesis of national geography had encouraged several countries in the first half of the 20th century to elaborate their own national atlases, each one under the criteria of the respective work teams. In order to unify criteria and thus make the work of different countries comparable, the International Geographical Union (IGU) established in 1956 a Working Group on National Atlases, which would later give way to the National Atlas Commission. These atlases were then defined as "fundamental and complex geographical atlases of specific countries, containing a recapitulation and generalisation of contemporary scientific knowledge in the field of physical, economic and political geography of the country concerned".

The cartographic techniques used in that edition contributed to the learning and practice of a new working methodology, different from the one that had been used until then, obtaining a considerable improvement in the quality of the final product.

Despite the many difficulties that hindered the completion of the project, the 28 geographical sheets and 24 of the 72 thematic sheets from the original 100 projected, were published in 1965. A Geographical Review of 227 pages and a Toponymic Index consisting of 176 pages and approximately 40,000 toponyms were published later. The last updates of some of the (non-thematic) geographical sheets were produced in the 1980s.

Although the Atlas remained unfinished due to circumstances beyond the control of the work team, and the tools used for the elaboration of the maps have been considerably improved, the scientific approach with which the work was promoted was well conceived and even ahead of its time. For the first time in Spain there was a work that synthesised through cartographic language the physical and human geography of the country, essential material for the governmental management of the territory, among other aspects.

In 1987, this multidisciplinary project was launched, organised into thirteen sections comprising 48 working groups, in which all aspects of the physical and human geography of our country were dealt with through mapping.

The thematic structure and format of this Atlas constituted a renovation with respect to the unfinished Atlas of 1965. A large-scale work was achieved, which represented a great qualitative and quantitative leap with respect to previous stages.