Gerard Mercator
Belgian, 1512 - 1594
Gerard Mercator (1512-1594) was a Flemish geographer and cartographer who is best known for creating the Mercator projection, a map that revolutionized navigation by accurately representing the curved surface of the Earth. He was born in Rupelmonde, Flanders (now part of Belgium) and was educated at the University of Louvain. In 1540, he published his first map, which was a world map. He went on to publish many other maps and wrote several books on geography and cartography. He was also a mathematical genius, inventing several new methods for calculating distances between two points. His innovations in cartography and geography are still used today.
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