Noun
Flemish geographer who lived in Germany; he invented the Mercator projection of maps of the globe (1512-1594)
Source: WordNetHappiest day of my life, was when the Defense Department took down its Mercator... I started learning how to make maps while on an Army payroll. So getting to see mine in the Pentagon, flanked by generals, is a little like being a prophet who is finally honored by his hometown. Arthur H. Robinson
A Mercator map can therefore never fully show the polar areas (as long as the projection is based on a cylinder centered on the Earth’s rotation axis; see the Transverse Mercator projection for another application). Source: Internet
Arno Peters stirred controversy when he proposed what is now usually called the Gall–Peters projection as the alternative to the Mercator. Source: Internet
Because the linear scale of a Mercator map increases with latitude, it distorts the size of geographical objects far from the equator and conveys a distorted perception of the overall geometry of the planet. Source: Internet
At latitudes greater than 70° north or south the Mercator projection is practically unusable, since the linear scale becomes infinitely high at the poles. Source: Internet
Following Mercator, Abraham Ortelius also showed BEACH and LVCACH in these locations on his world map of 1571. Source: Internet