Gerardus Mercator was born on the fifth of March, 1512 in Rupelmonde in Belgium. A cartographer, geographer and cosmographer, Mercator was to contribute his own form of projection that would change the face of map mapping. Mercator set out to find a solution to the problem of displaying the world, a sphere, on a flat surface. This followed Ferdinand Magellan’s conclusive demonstration that the world was in fact a sphere and not flat.
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