Flemish cartographer, geographer, and mathematician

Mercator, the world's most influential mapmaker, modernized cartography according to mathematical principles, facilitated navigation by charts, invented the projection that bears his name, and coined the term "atlas" to refer to a book of maps.

Born as Gerhardus Cremer, or Kremer, the son of a shoemaker, on March 5, 1512 in Rupelmonde, Flanders, he began using the Latin form of his surname upon entering the University of Louvain in 1530. Both "mercator" in Latin and "cremer" in Flemish, which is cognate with "Kramer" in German, mean "merchant." Raised by his uncle, Gisbert Mercator, who intended him for the Roman Catholic priesthood through the Brethren of the Common Life, he attended secondary school at 'sHertogenbosch and was apparently quite pious. His religious doubts began when his philosophical and theological studies at Louvain prompted him to consider whether biblical and ancient Greek cosmologies could...