Mercator projection: Quick Facts

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Photos and Videos

Diagram illustrating the simple cylindrical projection used in the Mercator map projection. On the left, a globe is shown with a cylinder wrapped around it, tangent at the equator, and a light source at the center projecting the map onto the cylinder. In the center, the Earth's features are projected onto the cylindrical surface. On the right, the resulting Mercator projection is displayed as a rectangular world map with latitude and longitude grid lines.

Side-by-side comparison showing a globe of the Earth on the left with accurately proportioned continents, and a Mercator projection map on the right, where landmasses appear increasingly distorted and stretched near the poles, especially between 60 and 90 degrees latitude. The map highlights how the Mercator projection exaggerates the size of high-latitude regions.

global topographic map of Venus

Mercator's 1569 world map

Smiling white woman pointing up at a vintage map, superimposed with the text Africa and the Mercator map.

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Topics

Why Does Greenland Look So Big on Some Maps?cylindrical projection

Key People

Gerardus Mercator

Gerardus Mercator

Flemish cartographer