Gerardus Mercator

Gerardus Mercator

Mercator world map by Gerardus Mercator, Nova et Aucta Orbis Terrae Descriptio ad Usum Navigatium Emendate (1569)

Gerardus Mercator, also called Gerhard Kremer, and born Gérard de Crémère (1512 – 1594), was a Flemish geographer and mathematician from Belgium. He explored Flanders and made globes about the earth and the sky. He became one of the best mapmakers of the 16th century. The Mercator projection that has his name is a flat map projection of the features of the surface of the earth that can be seen and made only mathematically. It was found to be excellent for navigating on oceans and is still used today. In 1585 he began a great atlas that was later finished by his son. His last years he used for studying theology.

Mercator was born in Rupelmonde and died in Duisburg.

Gerardus Mercator Media

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  Rupelmonde from Flandria illustrata, 1641

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  The playwright and teacher Georgius Macropedius

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  The Portuguese (Lusitanian) and Spanish hemispheres of the globe of Franciscus Monachus, following the Treaty of Tordesillas of 1494.

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  Gemma Frisius by Maarten van Heemskerck

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  The terrestrial globe of Gemma Frisius showing, in the south Pacific, the cartouche containing the dedication to Charles V and the publishing rights of Mercator.

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  The title page of Literarum Latinarum

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  Rupelmonde castle from Flandria Illustrata (1641)

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  • According to Charlotte Fell Smith, this portrait was painted when Dee was 67. It belonged to his grandson Rowland Dee and later to Elias Ashmole, who left it to Oxford University.
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  Astronomical clock with rotating globes

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  Mercator's theory of magnetism

Other websites

• Turn the pages of the British Library's Mercator Atlas of Europe (c.1570) Archived 2010-06-24 at the Wayback Machine
• Mercator's Atlas Archived 2007-11-23 at the Wayback Machine
• O'Connor, John J; Edmund F. Robertson "Gerardus Mercator". MacTutor History of Mathematics archive.