WHEN he took on his latest project, little did map maker David McCutcheon know that he would land himself a place in The Guinness Book of Records.

But having spent 18 months working on the world’s largest atlas – which measures 6ft by 4.5ft, weighs 150kg and will cost £65,000 – that’s exactly where the 53-year-old cartographer from Charlbury will soon find himself.

After being approached by the boss of Australian publisher Millennium House, Mr McCutcheon, inset, joined the team working to produce Earth Platinum.

He said: “Once production started it was apparent there was too much for me to handle on my own.

“Fortunately, I was able to assemble a team of people I’d worked with in Cape Town and Delhi. My team was really one cog in a huge wheel, with up to 100 cartographers involved, many just like me undertaking specific tasks.”

Millennium House boss Gordon Cheers, pictured with the atlas, said his vision was to produce a book that made readers feel “like they were on top of the world.

He said: “This is the closest any of us who are not astronauts can get to obtain a feeling of how the whole world would look from space. Some islands are seen for the first time at a reasonable size in relation to their nearest continent.”