Mercator (Gerhard Mercator)

Gerhard Mercator was a 16th-century Belgian cartographer best known for creating the Mercator projection map in 1569. This map projection translates Earth's surface onto a flat surface, making navigational routes, especially for ships, easier to follow as straight lines. While it distorts land sizes near the poles, it preserves angles and directions, which is crucial for navigation. Mercator's work revolutionized maritime mapping, enabling sailors to plot courses with greater accuracy. His projection remains influential today in navigation and map-making, though it is often supplemented with other maps that show more accurate land sizes.