Atlases from a suitable means for communicating complex and large amounts of spatial information and are generally considered a higher form of cartography (Kraak & Ormeling, 2001). As a final product of the BIOTA East Africa project such a printed atlas was produced with two thirds of its 1000 copies having been distributed in Kenya and Uganda. In the first part the workshop provides insights in the atlas making process and its challenges covering the conceptualizing phase, the actual realization of atlas content, and finally the printing. The second part is dedicated to the working with the atlas. Here we learn what kind of questions the atlas can answer and how it thus contributes to environmental education, decision making, and research.