This is the first in a series of three books which will, for the first time ever, show the distribution of Europe's more than 1500 species of millipedes on 50 X 50 km square maps. The present volume includes 492 species, including the tiny, beautiful pincushion millipedes, the colourful pill-millipedes and the flat-backed millipedes. The millipede atlas is the result of many years' meticulous accumulation of records provided by a large number of contributors from all over Europe, interpretation of label data from collections, and scrutiny of old literature. The atlas builds on the taxonomic backbone provided by the Fauna Europaea project which provides information on names, synonyms and distribution by country or region of non-marine European animals. The decision to produce a series of atlases showing the distribution of myriapods in Europe was taken by the participants at the Fourth International Congress of Myriapodology held in Gargnano in 1978 and soon after this the project received the full backing of the European Invertebrate Survey. Desmond Kime was designated to assemble the data. Much help has been received from the International Centre of Myriapodology in Paris which is acknowledged in this volume, together with the contributions of many members engaged in research in this field. Early in the 21st Century when Henrik Enghoff was playing a major role in Fauna Europaea the two authors joined forces with a view to making this millipede atlas and Fauna Europaea entirely compatible. It is hoped that this atlas will both stimulate and be a foundation for further studies. In several European countries the distribution and often the ecological requirements of millipedes are quite well understood but in many regions the information is fragmentary, the maps revealing where much remains to be done. There are undoubtedly many more species to discover. As a result of the work already undertaken it has become apparent that millipedes are very good bioindicators, being slow-moving and having particular habitat requirements which are helpful in biogeographical and evolutionary studies.