Gerardus Mercator 1512–1594
World's Most Influential Mapmaker
How do mapmakers make flat maps of the world if the Earth is round? Gerardus Mercator (juh RAHR duhs mur KAY tur) solved this problem more than 400 years ago. Mercator was a Flemish mapmaker who lived and worked in Germany. He wanted to help people sail around the world.
In 1569, Mercator drew a map of the world on paper wrapped around a cylinder. His projection, or way of showing the world on a flat surface, is called a Mercator projection. In Mercator projections, longitude lines parallel each other instead of meeting at the Poles as they do on a globe. Land near the equator is shown more accurately than land near the Poles. Greenland and Antarctica seem much larger than they really are, for example.
Mercator found that compass courses could be drawn as straight lines on his map. The straight lines made navigation easier for sailors. Navigators today still use Mercator projections to chart their courses.
Critical Thinking
What are some of the advantages and disadvantages of using a Mercator projection instead of a globe?