The Atlas is a 1996 semi-autobiographical work by American novelist William T. Vollmann.

A mixture of fiction and non-fiction, this book was drawn from Vollmann's experiences traveling around the world.

Vollmann has said that Yasunari Kawabata's Palm-of-the-Hand Stories were an important influence on the structure of the collection.

In addition to the table of contents, the stories are also listed according to the longitude and latitude of their setting.

When Vollmann went on a literary reading tour following the publication of The Atlas, he gained some notoriety for firing a gun loaded with blanks during his reading of the first story in the collection "The Back of My Head", which is based on an experience Vollmann had in the former Yugoslavia during wartime.