What is Mercator projection?
[[File:Mercator-proj.png|thumb|Classical Mercator projection of the earth]] [[File:Mercator_1569.png|thumb|Mercator's own map of the world, of 1569]] The '''Mercator projection''' is a [[cylinder|cylindrical]] [[map projection]] which is widely used in [[cartography]] today. It was developed by [[Gerardus Mercator]] in 1569. It is not a physical projection, and cannot be constructed using [[geometry|geometric]] tools. On a small scale, geometric shapes can be moved around the map, without distorting them (this property is known as [[Conformal map|conformity]]). As a downside, the scale of the shape and the direction of lines may change when shapes are moved. For example, [[Africa]] is actually 15 times larger than [[Greenland]], but on this map projection they look the same size. Today, Mercator projections are mainly used for [[map]]s. [[Category:Map projections]]