The Gerard Mercator's Map of the Arctic was originally published posthumously in his Atlas Sive Cosmographicæ Meditationes de Fabrica Mvndi et Fabricati Figvra ("Atlas or Cosmographic Meditations on the Fabric of the World and the Fabricated Figures") published in 1595.
The collection of maps in this volume was associated, for the first time, with the figure of Atlas, the Greek Titan condemned by Zeus to carry the celestial vault on his shoulders. However, the idea of gathering maps into a book predates this Atlas. Gerard Mercator died in December 1594 and his Atlas was completed and published in 1595 by his son, Rumold Mercator (1545– c. 1599).
The
inaccuracies on the Arctic map is mostly due the lack of knowledge of the
geography of the region known at the time. This map of the Arctic features a
unique polar projection, by Mercator, and depicts a North Pole surrounded by
four islands, separated by rivers. It also shows Northwest and Northeast Passage
discoveries of the time. This is the first full map of the Arctic, an expansion
of Mercator's inset of the area in his world map of 1569. The polar rock with
its four surrounding islands were accepted as real in the second half of the
16th century by some geographers and can be seen, for example, in the small map
inset into Mercator's wall-map of the world (1569) and John Dee's polar map (c.1582).
A reprint of the Mercator's Atlas was published in 1602. The Mercator's plates were bought in 1604 by Jodocus Hondius. He updated and published enlarged editions of the maps in the 1606 Atlas, with his sons Jodocus II and Henricus. This second edition was issued in Amsterdam with modifications based on new explorations. It was replaced in 1636 with a map by Henricus Hondius.
Gerard Mercator (1512-1594) was a Flemish cosmographer, a designation of the time for modern cartographers and astronomers. He was born Geert or Gerard (de) Kremer (or Cremer) in Rupelmonde (now in Belgium). He gave himself the Latin name Gerardus Mercator Rupelmundanus (Gerard Mercator of Rupelmonde), when enrolled at the University of Louvain in 1530. Mercator is the Latin translation of Kremer, which means "merchant". In 1552, Mercator moved from Leuven to Duisburg (now in Germany), where he spent the rest of his life. Mercator is most famous for his projection, a cylindrical map projection that preserves angles, making it useful for navigation. This projection represents sailing courses of constant bearing (rhumb lines) as straight lines. He also produced globes and scientific instruments.
Jodocus Hondius (1563-1612) was a Dutch engraver, cartographer, and publisher. He is best known for purchasing Mercator's atlas plates in 1604 and republishing them with additions and updates, adding 36 new maps to the original 107. This expanded atlas, known as the Mercator-Hondius Atlas, became a standard reference in the early few decades of the 17th century and was published in other languages. In the 1606 edition, the island of the four that is lower right in the Arctic map has an incomplete coastline. Changes were also made in the islands to the north of Russia.
