Gerard Mercator

Mercator was the first map maker to give a systematic collection of maps the name Atlas.

Gerard Mercator was born in Rupelmonde, March 5th, 1512, he was responsible for producing a set of exceedingly fine maps, with much of the same attention to detail and delight in fine design that characterised the maps of Ortelius.

Mercator's atlas was published in three parts between 1585 and 1595, by which year he had died, but his son and grandsons carried on the cartographical tradition with later issues of his works, adding maps of their own.

The Mecator Atlas contained maps of individual European countries as well as parts of them too. Maps of the continents and the World. Maps of the British Isles, England and Wales, as well as groups of county maps.

In 1606 Jodocus Hondius bought the plates and re-issued them in an extended atlas, a generation later Jan Jansson contributed some maps, and with these additions to the atlas it became an even larger work. They were published in a variety of languages, including a rare English edition in 1636.