The Mercator projection is a way of drawing the curved surface of the Earth on a flat map, presented in 1569 by the Flemish geographer and cartographer Gerardus Mercator on a large world map made for navigators. Its key property is that lines of constant compass bearing, called rhumb lines, appear as straight lines, which let sailors plot a course with a ruler and a compass. To achieve this, the map stretches distances more and more toward the poles, so that regions such as Greenland and Russia look far larger than they are compared with areas near the equator. Despite this distortion, the projection became the standard for marine charts and later for many wall maps and web mapping services, and it is still criticized for its effect on how people picture the size of countries.
Before and after
- from 1568 to 1918Russo-Turkish Wars
- from May 1568 to May 1573Marian civil war
- from 23 May 1568 to 30 January 1648Eighty Years' War
- from 24 December 1568 to 1 March 1571Rebellion of the Alpujarras
- 1569Invention of Mercator projection
- from 11 June 1569 to 24 October 1795Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth
- 1 July 1569Union of Lublin
- from 27 August 1569 to 1 January 1860Grand Duchy of Tuscany
- 1570Construction of Mexico City Metropolitan Cathedral
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The era
This moment belongs to the Early modern world (1500 CE to 1760 CE), voyages, printing and new ideas. You can also browse everything in the 16th century.