Rhumb Lines and Map Wars: A Social History of the Mercator Projection

Mark Stephen Monmonier

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Historical Geography and Cartography History and Theory of Mathematics Historical Geography and Geographical Thought

Abstract

In Rhumb Lines and Map Wars, Mark Monmonier offers an insightful, richly illustrated account of the controversies surrounding Flemish cartographer Gerard Mercator's legacy. He takes us back to 1569, when Mercator announced a clever method of portraying the earth on a flat surface, creating the first projection to take into account the earth's roundness. As Monmonier shows, mariners benefited most from Mercator's projection, which allowed for easy navigation of the high seas with rhumb lines-clear-cut routes with a constant compass bearing-for true direction. But the projection's popularity amo

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2015User preferences for world map projections 2009The Effect of Global-Scale Map-Projection Knowledge on Perceived Land Area 2012The Mercator and Stereographic Projections, and Many in Between 2018History of the Mercator projection 2008Coast Lines: How Mapmakers Frame the World and Chart Environmental Change 2020The Influence of Map Projections on People’s Global-Scale Cognitive Map: A Worldwide Study 2015Beyond the Periphery: Child and Adult Understanding of World Map Continuity 2017Map Projections and the Internet

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