Geographer and cartographer. * Rupelmonde (near by Antwerp) 3/5/1512, † Duisburg 12/2/1594.
Mercator produced globes and created the first modern maps, among others a map of Palestine (six sheets, 1537) and a map of Europe (15 sheets, 1554). He named the collected edition of his 107 maps whose appearance began 1585 (complete not until 1595) »Atlas«.
Mercator became famous for his great world map which was intended for seafaring (18 sheets, 1569). The Mercator projection is a conformal cylindrical projection which was already utilised by E. Etzlaub but named on Mercator.
Because of its conformality the Mercator projection (sea chart) is of great importance for navigation this very day.
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