Gesellschaft und Wirtschaft: Bildstatistisches Elementarwerk - Kartographische Übersicht : Weltkarte-Römerreich-Pazifik-Deutsches Reich-Orient-U.S.A.-Europa-Araberreich-Altamerika-Eurasien und Nordafrika-U.d.S.S.R.-Indien und der ferne Osten-Eurasien (Mongolenreich) [14080.103]
The pattern
This still is filed under Data as proof.
Define
A chart, map, or count that is the argument, not an illustration next to the argument.
Mechanism
Sighted evidence. The reader is asked to believe their eyes: a bar, a share, a spread on a map.
Verdict
The claim is comparative or quantitative and the figure can be read without a caption doing the sell.
Why it works
It is a colophon for the visual system rather than a chart, and publishing it is the move that makes the other ninety-nine plates trustworthy, because the reader can see that shapes were never rescaled to flatter an argument. The grid of unequal boxes lets thumbnails keep their true aspect ratio instead of being forced into uniform cells, so the overview does not lie about the maps it documents. Listing plate numbers under each base turns the sheet into a working index, so it earns its place instead of being decorative back matter. The title sitting inside an empty grid cell rather than above the grid keeps a single alignment system running across the whole sheet.
Steal this when
Steal this when a large body of work reuses a small set of underlying templates and you want to show the discipline behind it, for example a systems appendix in a report or a component inventory page at the back of a brand manual. Put it at the end, and make every entry point back to where it is used.