Gerard Mercator (Kremer) was born in Rupelmonde in East Flanders in 1512. He studied under Gemma Frisius at Louvain. He began producing maps in 1537, and issued his famous Mercator projection in 1569. In this projection a straight line between any two points would describe the loxodrom between them. His atlas was published in three parts in 1585, 1590, and 1595, a year after his death. Jodocus Hondius bought Mercator’s plates and issued several editions of the atlas enlarged with his own.
     Mercator’s map of Cyprus is not particularly accurate. The eastern part of the island is shown as shorter and broader than it is; also the direction of the island is shown as directly east-west, which is not the case. The map was published in 1590. The map of Africa is dated 1595. The one of South America is from a 1606 atlas.

     A portion of "Chart of the World on Mercator's Projection," General Atlas, Edinburgh, 1821. The sourvenir sheet was issued to mark the bicentennial of the birth of Simón Bolívar in 1983.

     The Map Stamp, the Canadian Christmas stamp of 1898 was the first representation of the Mercator Projection on a stamp.