EARTH wins Best Atlas award

EARTH, the world’s largest atlas was announced as ‘Best Atlas’ at the 24th International Cartographic Conference 2009 (ICC 2009) in Santiago, Chile on 21 November 2009.

The 20-kg limited edition tome was judged by an independent jury of seven professors and doctors of Cartography from the International Cartographic Association (ICA). Over 70 atlases and 450 maps from around the world were entered into the awards, with EARTH taking the most coveted award of Best Atlas. The accolade establishes EARTH as the best atlas produced in the world in 2009.

Damien Demaj, chief cartographer for EARTH was a guest speaker at the ICC 2009 Conference and accepted the award of behalf of the Australian publishing company, Millennium House. Over 700 International delegates attended the weeklong conference, along with 1400 local visitors. Over 45 countries participated in the atlas exhibition, with EARTH being acknowledged as the best presented.

Millennium House engaged more than 100 international cartographers (including UK based Global Mapping), oceanographers and geographers to produce and collate 355 maps, covering 170 countries. The atlas takes up 580 pages and flaunts 4 gatefolds each measuring over 1.8 meters in length including the famous NASA image ‘Earth from the Sky at Night’. A team of 50 editors gathered popular and unusual geographical facts and the design team selected the most exquisite images, including a large selection from the National Geographic archives.