Familiar satellite images show the earth as a ball rolling through space. For those of us who are earth-bound, it is useful to have map books to help us get around. But this raises a problem. How do we accurately map the shape of a country on a curved surface onto a flat sheet of paper? And what does ‘accurately’ mean here? The problem was solved in 1569 by the Flemish cartographer Gerhardus Mercator, who produced a map on which paths of constant compass direction are straight, and angles are the same as those found on the globe. Check out the links below to see how he manged this.
