Largest engraved atlas

The largest engraved atlas ever made is the Klencke Atlas, which is 178 cm high, 105 cm wide and 11 cm thick when closed (5 ft 10 in x 3 ft 5 in x 4 in), and 231 cm wide (7 ft 6 in) when open. Each of the atlas's 41 maps was printed from hand-drawn copperplate engravings, which differentiates it from modern large atlases that use digital printing. The Klencke Atlas was commissioned by a group of Dutch merchants and presented to King Charles II of England on the occasion of the restoration of the monarchy 1660.

The atlas is named for the person who formally presented it to the King, the Dutch academic Johannes Klencke, but the instigator and mastermind of the project was an influential politician and businessman called Count Johan Maurits van Nassau-Siegen. Maurits was a former governor of Dutch Brazil (a large plantation colony in what is now northern Brazil) and had many connections with sugar merchants there. The map was commissioned by Maurits and his associates as a gift that might persuade the king to offer favourable trade agreements to the Dutch (it succeeded in this goal).

The 41 copperplate maps represent a collection of some of the finest work produced in Europe during this era, including the work of Dutch master engravers Joan Blaeu, Hugo Allard and William Hondius, as well as pieces by cartographers from elsewhere in Europe. The maps present a picture of the world intended to advance Dutch interests in England, with the map of Brazil, for example, extolling the prosperity and importance of Dutch sugar plantations.

The Klencke Atlas had pride of place in Charles II's cabinet of curiosities and remained a treasured possession of the British crown for many years. In 1828, it was gifted to the British Library, where it has been displayed ever since. In 2017, the Atlas was digitized and made available on the British Library website.