''Earth Platinum'', published by Millennium House in 2012, is the world's largest

atlas An atlas is a collection of maps; it is typically a bundle of maps of Earth or of a region of Earth. Atlases have traditionally been bound into book form, but today many atlases are in multimedia formats. In addition to presenting geographic ...

at . It surpasses the famous ''

Klencke Atlas The ''Klencke Atlas'', first published in 1660, is one of the world's largest atlases.

'' at the

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the British ...

, which held the record of the world's largest atlas since 1660.

The atlas

''Earth Platinum'' weighs and has 128 pages, each of which is so large it takes two hands (or people) to turn a page. The book is a mixture of maps and

gigapixel A gigapixel image is a digital image bitmap composed of one billion (109) pixels (picture elements), 1000 times the information captured by a 1 megapixel digital camera. A square image of 31,623 pixels in width and height is one gigapixel. Cur ...

photography. The maps include large orthographic maps of each

continent A continent is any of several large landmasses. Generally identified by convention rather than any strict criteria, up to seven geographical regions are commonly regarded as continents. Ordered from largest in area to smallest, these seven ...

(showing political and physical features), maps of the

ocean The ocean (also the sea or the world ocean) is the body of salt water that covers approximately 70.8% of the surface of Earth and contains 97% of Earth's water. An ocean can also refer to any of the large bodies of water into which the wo ...

s, (including

shipwreck A shipwreck is the wreckage of a ship that is located either beached on land or sunken to the bottom of a body of water. Shipwrecking may be intentional or unintentional. Angela Croome reported in January 1999 that there were approximately ...

locations) and poles, as well as very detailed regional maps. The book also includes a double-page 6 feet x 9 feet layout of the world's flags. Among its many spectacular images, ''Earth Platinum'' contains the world's largest image in a book, a photo of the

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flow ...

skyline. This image size is 272

s and made up of more than 12 thousand images tiled together. Libraries which hold a copy of the atlas include the

National Library of New Zealand The National Library of New Zealand ( mi, Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa) is New Zealand's legal deposit library charged with the obligation to "enrich the cultural and economic life of New Zealand and its interchanges with other nations" (''Nat ...

, Wellington and the

State Library of New South Wales The State Library of New South Wales, part of which is known as the Mitchell Library, is a large heritage-listed special collections, reference and research library open to the public and is one of the oldest libraries in Australia. Establish ...

, Sydney, Australia.

Production

The atlas was conceived by Australian publisher

Gordon Cheers James Gordon Cheers (born 1954) owned a wholesale carnivorous plant nursery in southeast Australia. He went on to publish ''Carnivorous Plants'' (1983) and ''A Guide to Carnivorous Plants of the World'' (1993). This was followed by ''Killer Pla ...

and published in Australia, with the help of a team of over 88

cartographer Cartography (; from grc, χάρτης , "papyrus, sheet of paper, map"; and , "write") is the study and practice of making and using maps. Combining science, aesthetics and technique, cartography builds on the premise that reality (or an im ...

s from around the world. The atlas was printed in Italy and hand-bound in

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

; the cartography was co-ordinated by a company in

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

. Published 20 February 2012, ''Earth Platinum'' follows publication of the "smaller" ''Earth Blue'' and ''Earth Gold'', both 2 ft x 18 inch, 30 kg, and both limited editions. ''Earth Platinum'' is priced at ; only 31 copies were printed.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Millennium House Official Site

Geographx Cartography

Giant Atlas Kiwi Connection Video

'World's Biggest Book' Launched At Fair

Atlases 2012 non-fiction books

The atlas

Production

See also

References

External links