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Ptolemy's map of the Mediterranean superimposed on a modern map, with Greenwich as the reference longitude. Ptolemy, in the 2nd century AD, based his mapping system on estimated distances and directions reported by travellers. Until then, all maps had used a rectangular grid with latitude and longitude as straight lines intersecting at right ...
Germanus invented the Donis map projection where parallels of latitude are made equidistant, but meridians converge toward the poles. 1492: German merchant Martin Behaim (1459–1507) made the oldest surviving terrestrial globe, but it lacked the Americas. [6]
Length of one degree (black), minute (blue) and second (red) of latitude and longitude in metric (upper half) and imperial units (lower half) at a given latitude (vertical axis) in WGS84. For example, the green arrows show that Donetsk (green circle) at 48°N has a Δ long of 74.63 km/° (1.244 km/min, 20.73 m/sec etc) and a Δ lat of 111.2 km ...
A geographic coordinate system (GCS) is a spherical or geodetic coordinate system for measuring and communicating positions directly on Earth as latitude and longitude. [1] It is the simplest, oldest and most widely used type of the various spatial reference systems that are in use, and forms the basis for most others.
World map made by Rumold Mercator in 1587, using two equatorial aspects of the stereographic projection. The stereographic projection was likely known in its polar aspect to the ancient Egyptians , though its invention is often credited to Hipparchus , who was the first Greek to use it.
A medieval depiction of the Ecumene (1482, Johannes Schnitzer, engraver), constructed after the coordinates in Ptolemy's Geography and using his second map projection. In cartography, a map projection is any of a broad set of transformations employed to represent the curved two-dimensional surface of a globe on a plane.
A Cartesian coordinate system in two dimensions (also called a rectangular coordinate system or an orthogonal coordinate system [8]) is defined by an ordered pair of perpendicular lines (axes), a single unit of length for both axes, and an orientation for each axis. The point where the axes meet is taken as the origin for both, thus turning ...
The ordinate y of the Mercator projection becomes infinite at the poles and the map must be truncated at some latitude less than ninety degrees. This need not be done symmetrically. Mercator's original map is truncated at 80°N and 66°S with the result that European countries were moved toward the centre of the map.