Mercator mapped out the world but preferred to stay home

Gerardus Mercator Rupelmundanus, whose face that once graced the Belgian thousand franc note, would have been 500 years old today. In Rupelmonde and its surroundings, where the famous cartographer was born Gerard De Kremer on 5 March 1512, festivities will last throughout the year. Who was the bearded man who coined the word ‘atlas’ and was the first to name the northern part of the new world ‘America’? “Mercator was a genius, but a little boring,” explains science journalist Dirk Draulans, who fiercely defended the cartographer’s case in 2005 when Mercator 1512 – 1594 was among the nominees for the election of  The Biggest Belgian. In scientific circles the world’s most renown cartographer is lauded. According to Draulans, almost nothing is known about Mercator’s personal life. He gained his knowledge from books and although he put the world on the map, so to speak, he himself did not like to travel. In 1544 he was locked up in the Rupelmonde castle for eight months. Draulans believes it was due to his critical stance towards religion. Unlike his fellow gaolers, who were hanged, Mercator was released. His contribution to science cannot be underestimated, Draulans insists. His most meritorious contribution must be the Mercator projection, which is still used for shipping and aviation maps. Any projection on a flat surface of a sphere, like Earth, results in distortions.  Mercator introduced the principle of the angle projection, which allowed navigators to use a fixed angle in relation to the lines on a chart during their navigation, making it practical to sail with a compass. Modern-day technology still uses his projections and navigation systems based on satellite bearings, like GPS, still rely on him, says Draulans. According to engineer Wim Lahaye, who collaborated on the European Galileo Project, Mercator’s projection is still relevant and he believes that the great European satellite navigation project should have been christened Mercator instead of Galileo. Mercator was not only the first to call his map book an atlas, but he was also the first to name the northern part of the new world America. According to Eddy Maes of the Royal Archaeological Circle of the Waasland, only South America was called America, as the northern part was considered by cartographers to belong to Asia. Mercator was the first to establish that they were both part of the same continent. The Sint-Niklaas city museum SteM currently boasts the Royal Archaeological Circle’s best pieces: the original terrestrial globe and the celestial globe produced by Mercator in 1541 and 1551 – recently filmed by the BBC. Other treasures include an extensive collection of his original maps and atlases. The large map of Flanders in the Mercator Museum is a copy and the original hangs in the Museum Plantin-Moretus in Antwerp.