Huge atlas is a big voyage planning aid

MapLink, a map and travel guide publishing company located in Santa Barbara, Calif., is now offering the ultimate aid to your voyage planning. A huge 63-pound atlas named Earth. Get one for the voyager who has everything.

 

From the press release: Map Link now offers EARTH, the most comprehensive – and largest – atlas ever produced. EARTH is the ultimate statement of the planet as we know it. Weighing a massive 63 pounds with its leather-bound cover, gilded silver pages and silk-lined slipcase, EARTH combines spectacular photography, authoritative text, and detailed maps of every corner of the world. Only 2,000 copies will ever be produced, each of them signed and numbered.

Bill Hunt, Map Link’s President, noted that it is particularly gratifying to be able to offer this unique volume as the nations of the world debate the future of the earth in Copenhagen. “This atlas is the result of thousands of hours of work by the foremost international cartographers and geographers. They have produced the definitive snapshot of the world today in text, photos and maps.” EARTH has garnered top awards from two of the most prestigious international map and geography societies for its size content and design.

The enormous size of the atlas makes it possible to have extraordinary detail in the 576-page book. It contains over 800 photos from the world’s best photographers, including four gatefolds that extend out nearly six feet. Over 110,000 features are indexed. Measuring 18 by 24 inches and weighing 40 pounds, EARTH is a magnificent, gargantuan volume which only one person in 3.3 million will be able to own. The printing plates have been destroyed for this luxury, limited-edition tome. Each book is delivered directly to its new owner, gently nestled inside a silk-lined leather-covered hardwood slipcase with a signed, numbered Certificate of Authenticity. And the price is equally extraordinary: $4,800 until next year, when the price increases to $5,800. The price includes shipping direct to each customer.

A select group of libraries, including The British Museum, the Library of Congress, Harvard University and the University of California at Berkeley, ordered the atlas prior to publication. “We keep Earth displayed on a stand so the public can view it. It gets rave reviews,” reported Ed Redmond from the Library of Congress.

EARTH had been the long-held dream of publisher Gordon Cheers. He created Millennium House to produce this exceptional atlas and fought against those who thought that his vision of the ultimate atlas was impossible to achieve. International awards and public approval proved him right, however, as soon as the book was produced.

EARTH’s arrival in America today is timely as climate change accelerates and public increasingly turns to understand the world around us.

Map Link is North America’s leading distributor of maps and atlases. Stocking and selling tens of thousands of unique maps and atlases in its Santa Barbara warehouse, Map Link purchases the highest quality cartographic products from around the world and provides them to academics, retailers and the general public.

To find out more, please visit www.maplink.com.