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Gerardus Mercator (5 March 1512 – 2 December 1594) was a Flemish cartographer. He was born in Rupelmonde in East Flanders to parents from Gangelt in the Duchy of Jülich. He lived in Duisburg from 1552. He is remembered for the Mercator chart named after him.

Mercator was born Gheert Cremer (or Gerard de Cremere) in the Flemish town of Rupelmonde. "Mercator" is the Latinized form of his name. It means "merchant". He was educated in 's-Hertogenbosch by the famous humanist Macropedius and at the University of Leuven. Despite his fame as a cartographer, Mercator's main source of income came through his craftmanship of mathematical instruments. He returned to Leuven and worked with Gemma Frisius and Gaspar Myrica. They worked together from 1535 to 1536 to construct a terrestrial globe. Although the role of Mercator in the project was not primarily as a cartographer, but as a highly skilled engraver of brass plates. Mercator's own independent map-making only began when he produced a map of Palestine in 1537, and this was followed by another map of the world (1538) and a map of Flanders (1540). During this period he learned Italic script since it was the most suitable type of script for copper engraving of maps. He wrote the first instruction book of Italic script published in northern Europe.

Mercator was charged with heresy in 1544 due to his sympathy for Protestant beliefs and suspicions about his frequent travels. He was in prison for seven months before the charges were dropped, possibly because of intervention from the university authorities.^[1]

In 1552, he moved to Duisburg, one of the major cities in the German Duchy of Cleves. He opened a cartographic workshop, where he completed a six-panel map of Europe in 1554. He also worked as a surveyor for the city. His motives for moving to Duisburg are not clear. Mercator might have left the Netherlands for religious reasons or because he was informed about the plans to found a university. He taught mathematics at the academic college of Duisburg. After producing several maps he was appointed Court Cosmographer to Wilhelm, Duke of Jülich-Cleves-Berg in 1564. He constructed a new chart and first used it in 1569; it had parallel lines of longitude to aid navigation by sea, as compass courses could be marked as straight lines.

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