Sorry I forgot to say that for a world atlas I'd suggest the one I was introduced to in Geography 52 at GWU. Properly, it's called Goode's Atlas of the World. They seem to have an updated version every couple of years. It's very unusual that they have more than two years between editions. And, they seemed always to have the latest country lists and national capitals from the C__ when I was following them closely which was quite useful.

Hope this helps too.

virginia (Hetrick)