Famous People and Map Projections

Abstract

Map projections have been developed in parallel with the development of map production and cartography in general. Development of sciences, technical achievements and needs of everyday life have gradually increased demands for production of various topographic and thematic maps in various scales and for various purposes, which required continuous improvement of map projections and mathematical basis of maps. Beginnings ofmap projections date as far as two thousand years ago, when ancient Greek scientists applied mathematical principles to projecting Earth and the starry sky and started applying the graticule. Hundreds of map projections have been invented since the antique. Many people have been interested in the theory of map projections and have written about them. Since there are so many of them, we decided to make a narrower selection of abut 40 people. Those people are presented in chronological rather than alphabetical order in this chapter. Their most important contributions to map projections are described and illustrated.