Mercator Projection Bellerby & Co World 2023 Yellow Ochre 65 Centimetre Globe.

• Main Authors: Bellerby & Co Globemakers, Bellerby, Peter
• Format: Other/Unknown Material
• Language: unknown
• Published: Bellerby & Co Globemakers 2023
• Subjects: Greenland; Ochre
• Online Access: https://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~350231~90117627; https://media.davidrumsey.com/MediaManager/srvr?mediafile=/Size4/RUMSEY~8~1/205/15478012.jpg

The Mercator projection is a type of cylindrical projection that was developed by Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator in 1569. It is widely used for navigation and is one of the most well-known and recognized map projections. In the Mercator projection, the Earth is imagined as a cylinder, with the equator as a straight line across the middle of the map. The distance between lines of longitude is the same across the entire map, and the lines of latitude are equally spaced, but they are not straight lines. Instead, they are curved and spaced farther apart towards the poles. The Mercator projection has the advantage of preserving the direction of all lines on the map, making it easy to navigate a course by following a straight line. This property makes it popular for nautical charts and for air navigation. However, the Mercator projection exaggerates the size of land masses at high latitudes, making Greenland, for example, appear much larger than South America, which is actually almost eight times larger in area. Despite its distortions, the Mercator projection remains popular because of its simple and useful properties. However, other projections, such as the Peters projection, have been developed to address the issues of size distortions, especially in regards to political and social issues. 12 Bellerby globe gores were georeferenced using a Polyconic projection and then reprojected to create different globes and maps. All images are © Bellerby & Co. Limited 2023. For more information on Bellerby Globes, see https://bellerbyandco.com/