The world’s largest Atlas, the 6 ft-tall Earth Platinum from Australian publisher Millennium House has gone on sale for a mere $100,000 per copy. The atlas contains 128 pages and more than 45 images of the finest contemporary maps, as well as images of famous landscapes, and is considered an artistic showpiece. The publisher said that the last book even close in size to his 128-page volume was the Klencke Atlas, produced in 1660 as a gift for Charles II of England.
Earth Platinum Limited Edition by Millennium House
The publication venture is the brainchild of Gordon Cheers, who has been a fervent supporter of the project for decades. The idea for the map started 25 years ago and work on the mapping involved has been going on for over 4 years, with over 100 international cartographers, geographers and photographers having been involved in the project.
Earth Platinum was printed in Italy last December and bound in Hong Kong. It is not only very up to date, but – as you would imagine – very detailed, even showing the location of shipwrecks. It has all the latest information about any country and also it has good photos about each country.
The 30 or so photographs contained inside must be one of the book’s most compelling attractions. The largest have been created using Gigapan photography. A spread of the Shanghai skyline is comprised of 12,000 individual photos and is, according to the Altea Gallery, the largest photograph in the world.
The volume is printed on archival acid free paper on traditional presses, and is bound by hand and covered in leather. Earth Platinum is expected to be in the finest book collections 500 years from now as a historical record of our world in 2011. When the buildings around us have disappeared, and digital communication platforms have evolved to formats beyond our current expectations, this impressive atlas will still be here as our planet’s legacy.
The book took around a month to produce and Cheers is limiting the print run of his monster Atlas to 31. A few of the copies had been reserved from Middle Eastern countries and one copy is available for sale by the Altea Gallery in London’s Mayfair.
