Why is Mercator still important today?

Why is Mercator still important today?

His most famous work, the Mercator projection, is a geographical chart where the spherical globe is flattened into a two-dimensional map, with latitude and longitude lines drawn in a straight grid. Mercator’s view of the world is one that has endured through the centuries and still helps navigators today.

Why is the Mercator projection favored by navigators?

It became the standard map projection for navigation because it is unique in representing north as up and south as down everywhere while preserving local directions and shapes. As a side effect, the Mercator projection inflates the size of objects away from the equator.

Why is the Mercator projection popular?

One of the most famous map projections is the Mercator, created by a Flemish cartographer and geographer, Geradus Mercator in 1569. It became the standard map projection for nautical purposes because of its ability to represent lines of constant true direction.

What is the use of Mercator projection?

Description. Mercator is a conformal cylindrical map projection that was originally created to display accurate compass bearings for sea travel. An additional feature of this projection is that all local shapes are accurate and correctly defined at infinitesimal scale. It was presented by Gerardus Mercator in 1569.

What is wrong with the Mercator projection?

Mercator maps distort the shape and relative size of continents, particularly near the poles. The popular Mercator projection distorts the relative size of landmasses, exaggerating the size of land near the poles as compared to areas near the equator.

What is the major weakness of the Mercator projection?

Disadvantages: Mercator projection distorts the size of objects as the latitude increases from the Equator to the poles, where the scale becomes infinite. So, for example, Greenland and Antarctica appear much larger relative to land masses near the equator than they actually are.

What is better than Mercator projection?

The Gall-Peters projection (shown below) makes seeing the relative size of places much easier. Despite these benefits, the Gall-Peters projection has its flaws. It doesn’t enlarge areas as much as the Mercator projection, but certain places appear stretched, horizontally near the poles and vertically near the Equator.

Is Greenland bigger than the US?

Greenland is approximately 2,166,086 sq km, while United States is approximately 9,833,517 sq km, making United States 354% larger than Greenland. Meanwhile, the population of Greenland is ~57,616 people (332.6 million more people live in United States). Greenland using our country comparison tool.

Who uses the Mercator projection?

The Mercator projection was mainly used for maps. This made it possible for the entire globe to be drawn on a flat sheet. It is also used for marine navigation since the lines of constant direction appear as straight lines on the map.

What is wrong with the Robinson projection?

The Robinson projection is neither conformal nor equal-area. It generally distorts shapes, areas, distances, directions, and angles. Angular distortion is moderate near the center of the map and increases toward the edges. Distortion values are symmetric across the equator and the central meridian.

What are the pros and cons of Mercator projection?

Advantage: The Mercator map projection shows the correct shapes of the continents and directions accurately. Disadvantage: The Mercator map projection does not show true distances or sizes of continents, especially near the north and south poles.

What four distortions are there in the Robinson projection?

There are four main types of distortion that come from map projections: distance, direction, shape and area.

Why are we still using Mercator projection?

If you have studied geography extensively, you might know this: Most [commerical] maps use Mercator projection which falsely depicts certain areas on the map larger or smaller than they actually are. The Mercator Projection widely used today was created in the16th-century by Gerardus Mercator, a Flemish cartographer.

How are meridians and parallels of latitude used in Mercator projection?

Mercator projection. The meridians are equally spaced parallel vertical lines, and the parallels of latitude are parallel horizontal straight lines that are spaced farther and farther apart as their distance from the Equator increases. This projection is widely used for navigation charts, because any straight line on a Mercator projection map is…

When did Pedro Nunes invent the Mercator projection?

Portuguese mathematician and cosmographer Pedro Nunes first described the mathematical principle of the loxodrome and its use in marine navigation. In 1537, he proposed constructing a nautical atlas composed of several large-scale sheets in the cylindrical equidistant projection as a way to minimize distortion of directions.

When did Erhard Etzlaub make the Mercator projection?

German polymath Erhard Etzlaub engraved miniature “compass maps” (about 10×8 cm) of Europe and parts of Africa that spanned latitudes 0°–67° to allow adjustment of his portable pocket-size sundials. The projection found on these maps, dating to 1511, was stated by Snyder in 1987 to be the same projection as Mercator’s.