Today, the word atlas has several contemporary meanings depending on context, but its most common modern usage is a collection of maps, charts, and geographical data in book or digital form. A modern atlas is used for education, navigation, and reference, showing political boundaries, physical features, roads, and thematic data like population and climate, with examples including the National Geographic Atlas of the World, Google Maps being a digital atlas, and school atlases. In anatomy, atlas today means the first cervical vertebra, C1, which supports the skull and allows nodding, named after the mythological Titan Atlas who holds up the sky. In architecture, an atlas or atlantes is a sculpted male figure used as a column to support an entablature, similar to a caryatid. In mythology and figurative language, Atlas today symbolizes someone who bears a heavy burden or responsibility, as in the phrase he is the Atlas holding the company together. In publishing and data, atlas can mean any comprehensive compendium of information, such as an atlas of human anatomy, atlas of genetics, or atlas of astronomy. In business, Atlas is a popular company name. In astronomy, ATLAS is an asteroid survey system. So today, atlas most commonly means a map book, but retains medical, architectural, and symbolic meanings, all derived from the original Titan who held up the heavens, representing support and comprehensive knowledge.
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