Mercator projection

E321733

The Mercator projection is a cylindrical map projection widely used for navigation because it preserves angles and directions but greatly distorts the size of landmasses near the poles.

All labels observed (2)

Label Occurrences
Mercator projection canonical 7
Web Mercator 2

How this entity was disambiguated

Statements (47)

Predicate Object
instanceOf conformal projection
cylindrical projection
map projection
advantage angle preservation for navigation
straight-line rhumb courses
appliesTo ellipsoidal Earth model
spherical Earth model
cannotShow the poles
classification cylindrical conformal projection
commonlyCriticizedFor Eurocentric visual bias
area distortion in world maps
commonlyUsedBy Google Maps
surface form: Google Maps (spherical variant)

OpenStreetMap
surface form: OpenStreetMap (Web Mercator)

online map services
coordinateSystem longitude-latitude grid
creator Gerardus Mercator
disadvantage exaggerated size of Antarctica
exaggerated size of Greenland
misleading perception of relative country sizes
distorts area
high-latitude regions
size of landmasses near the poles
domain cartography
hasLatitudeLimit practically used below about 85 degrees latitude
hasMathematicalBasis logarithmic function of tangent of latitude
hasProperty conformal
cylindrical
not equal-area
hasVariant Mercator projection self-linksurface differs
surface form: Web Mercator

spherical Mercator
inception 1569
maps great circles to complex curves
rhumb lines to straight lines
namedAfter Gerardus Mercator
poleRepresentation poles at infinity
preserves angles
local shapes
rhumb line directions
projectionSurface cylinder
projectionType normal aspect
scaleDistortion increases with latitude
scaleFactor true at the equator
usedFor marine navigation
nautical charts
topographic mapping at low latitudes
web mapping
world maps

How these facts were elicited

Referenced by (9)

Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.

Gerardus Mercator notableWork Mercator projection
Gerardus Mercator mapProjectionDeveloped Mercator projection
Mercator–Hondius atlas usesProjection Mercator projection
WMS supportsCoordinateReferenceSystem Mercator projection
this entity surface form: Web Mercator
Gerard de Kremer knownFor Mercator projection
Gerard de Kremer created Mercator projection
de Kremer notableFor Mercator projection
subject surface form: Gerardus Mercator
de Kremer relatedTo Mercator projection
Mercator projection hasVariant Mercator projection self-linksurface differs
this entity surface form: Web Mercator