«I want to be a citizen of the world - at home everywhere...

 and travelling everywhere». A thoroughly modern statement that was said and written in the early 16th century by Erasmus of Rotterdam, the famous Dutch philosopher and theologist. Erasmus’ era was an age of discovery and “new beginnings” – an age of bold explorers, conquerors, innovative scientists, brilliant artists, and brave reformers.

In today’s modern world it often seems that scientists and explorers have “discovered” every corner of the globe, while satellites map and photograph the planet’s surface in detail, and television brings images of distant lands right into our home everyday. However, so much of our planet still remains exotic and unknown to most of us. The barren landscapes of Siberia, the jungles of Central Africa, the countless islands of the Pacific, the mighty mountains of the Andes. Nations, peoples, and societies with their distinctly foreign languages and lifestyles. And to be perfectly honest, how many of us really know the countries and cultures right next door to us as well as we could.

The Chinese philosopher Lao Zi once said "a journey of a thousand miles begins with the very first step". The "first step" of Wolfgang Kunth Publishing took place in 1997. Our goal from the beginning was to present our world, our "blue planet" with all of its wonders, its nations and people, its plants and animals, and its surprising diversity to our readers. And of course, to provide our readers with fascinating new knowledge about our precious planet; the only home we have. Our "global village" needs as many excited, interested, informed, and tolerant world citizens as possible.

Our first publication "Our World today", a comprehensive world atlas in handy compact format sold more than a million copies in Poland alone. An exciting beginning - both motivating and informing for us. All of our other works published under the brand name + Kunth + have been - even those that didn't sell more than a million copies - very successful. Produced and published with great care, our publications present the world and its fascinating natural and cultural wonders in a variety of formats; world atlases, vividly illustrated lexicons, photography books, and travel guides. They are made to be exciting, with fantastic images and precise, accurate cartography and informing details. The coordinators, authors, photographers, picture- and text editors, and cartographers that work on each project are carefully selected. They are chosen because they all have shown they have the ability to create a product that will bring the many suprises and fascinating attractions of our planet to a wide audience. During the production of each publication we place a special emphasis on the optical concept and aesthetics; using only high quality, attractive photographs is one of our priorities. Our images should not only be modern and geared to the texts, they should also look good - and thereby capture and stir the interest and curiosity of readers.

With our philosophy and dedication to quality we have managed in a few years to build a worldwide market for our products. Our atlases, books, maps, and calendars are not only sold in just about every European country, but also in countries around the world, including Japan, Australia, the United States, and South Africa. We now have the all important "first steps" behind us and we are now working and striving to make sure that are many more miles and exciting new milestone ahead for us in the future. And we, of course, look forward with the help of our new publications to helping more people become "world citizens" of this fascinating planet. We hope that our work will continue to spread knowledge, incite tolerance, spur interest and awaken the curiosity and wanderlust of our readers. Because as the Nobel Prize-winning Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore once said - "we only live in this world when we love it".

Wolfgang Kunth