The Age Of Exploration

The Age of Exploration from the 15th to 18th centuries was critical to the development of cartography as it is known today. This era began with Columbus “rediscovering” North America in 1492 and ended when Europeans believed the entire world had been sufficiently mapped. This period marked a time when numerous maps were created and quickly made obsolete by new discoveries all around the world. This was a time for incredible innovation in the art and science of cartography. From the first globe “Erdapfel” created by Martin Behaim in the 1490s to the intricate and detailed topographic maps of Switzerland first created in the 1840s , cartography made many significant leaps in precision and utility. Doctors, economists, and politicians applied

Creating a high-quality map in the 17th century was a time-intensive and expensive endeavor that required the expertise of artists, printers, engravers, woodworkers, and other fine craftsmen. Through the Dutch East India Company, Dutch cartographers had access to years of data on the commerce of the spice trade. This source of abundant wealth and information led to the low country’s establishment as the center of European trade and learning and the rise of the Dutch school of

He is credited with the invention of Mercator Projection, a cylindrical projection of a spherical earth, in 1569. The Mercator Projection revolutionized navigation at sea by allowing sailors to plot “lines of constant course,” also known as loxodromes or rhumb lines. A rhumb line is a line crossing all meridians, the vertical lines used in Mercator Projection, at a constant angle. This is particularly useful in marine navigation because it allows a sailor to set a bearing and follow it along a course plotted on a map