The overall winner of the International Map Industry Association (IMIA) regional map awards this year was the Millennium House Australia entry Earth Platinum World Atlas, published by Gordon Cheers.

The Atlas will be the IMIA Asia Pacific region entry into the IMIA Global Map Awards to be held in Cambridge MA, USA in September.

The Atlas is truly amazing, standing 180 cm high x 275 cm wide when opened. It also comes with a truly amazing price tag – USD 100,000.

The atlas includes more than 45 pages of the finest contemporary maps, and is limited to thirty-one individually numbered copies.

Over 60 cartographers from around the world worked on the atlas, with many IMIA member cartographers involved, but the hefty price tag begs the question – how much would a fully digital, interactive version of an equivalent size cost? And could such a project lie ahead on the horizon?