History of the Mercator projection

Abstract

The Mercator projection is named after Gerardus Mercator who was the first to create a map in this projection in 1569, mainly for navigation purposes. After Mercator created his map it took about a century before the mathematics behind the projection was fully understood and proved. Up to today it is not fully clear how Mercator created his map, although there are some speculations. Edward Wright was the first who published an explicit mathematical description of the Mercator projection in 1599, and he explains how a map can be constructed using an approximation method. An analysis of the accuracy of this approximation method is part of this thesis.