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Now the world has the new largest atlas, known as
“Earth Platinum”. It was unveiled on 12th of July at the British Library
in London. The Earth Platinum has beaten another one present at the
British Library, known as Klencke atlas.
Earth Platinum has outsized Klencke atlas by 30 cm on each side. Klencke
atlas was given to King Charles II on his restoration to the throne. And
in 1820s, British library got it with other map collection of King
George III.
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Peter Barber OBE, head of Cartography and Topography at the British
Library and writer of the introduction of the Earth Platinum says, “The
Library’s collection of maps is one of the greatest in the world, and
the maps are important not only for their use as geographical aids, but
also as mirrors of the cultures in which they were created”
And he further adds on the importance of an atlas like Earth Platinum,
“while the Klencke Atlas provides an insight into the world of British
monarchs in the seventeenth century, and what they thought was important
about it, the Earth Platinum will offer a reflection of what people of
2012 felt was worth recording about their very different world. It will
be an astonishing resource for researchers in ten, twenty or two hundred
years of time.”
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The record holder Earth Platinum measures 6ft x 9ft (1.8m x 2.7m) and
weighs 200 kg. It required six members of the library to carry its
weight through the doors to join the Library’s map collection.
Earth Platinum was published by Australian publishers Millennium House.
And it consists of 61 pages of maps. The maps for this Atlas are
produced by using satellite images and some other photographic technique
which brings thousands of photographs into one whole image. |