The world's largest book, a giant atlas weighing 150 kilograms, will be on display at the State Library of NSW for the next four weeks.

The Earth Platinum, which measures 1.8 metres by 2.7 metres, is part of the library's permanent collection and will be on display in the Mitchell Library Reading Room.

There are only 31 copies of the book, which was released by publisher Millennium House in 2012.

The state library copy is the only one in Australia.

The giant atlas contains 61 pages of maps. ( Image supplied: State Library of NSW )

Gordon Cheers of Millennium House conceived the idea of the world's largest atlas 25 years ago and it took four years to produce.

"It's not always easy to get a sense of scale of our planet — this is the closest a book can go to achieve this," 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."

The world's largest book needs several staff members to turn the pages. ( Image supplied: State library of NSW )

More than 100 international cartographers, geographers and photographers were involved in the production of the atlas, which contains 128 pages — 61 pages of maps and 27 images of famous locations including St Peter's Basilica and Machu Picchu.

Many of the images were made from stitching together 1,000 individual photographs. The largest image has 12,000 photographs.

"The library holds an impressive collection of world atlases, and Earth Platinum is a remarkable example of a unique milestone in the history of cartographic publishing," the state library's maps expert, Maggie Patton, said.

Until now the British Library held the record for the world's largest atlas with the 1660 Klencke Atlas.