VINTAGE MAP REPRODUCTION: Add style to any room's decor with this beautiful decorative print. Whether your interior design is modern, rustic or classic, a map is never out of fashion MUSEUM QUALITY INKS AND PAPER: Printed on thick 192gsm heavyweight matte paper with archival giclee inks, this historic fine art will decorate your wall for years to come ARTWORK MADE TO ORDER IN THE USA: We make each reprint only when you order it. Every antique map is edited for image quality, color and vibrance, so it can look its best while retaining historical character. Makes a great gift! FRAME READY: Your unframed poster ships crease-free, rolled in a sturdy mailing tube. Many maps fit easy-to-find standard size frames 16x20, 16x24, 18x24, 24x30, 24x36, saving on custom framing Watermarks will not appear in the printed picture. Old maps sometimes have blemishes, tears, or stamps that may be removed from the final print

This is the second edition of Gerard Mercator's map of the North Pole or Arctic, one of the great cartographer's most interesting and important maps. Mercator's Arctic projection has its roots in his magnificent 1569 wall map of the world in which Mercator first introduces his revolutionary projection. As regards the Arctic, the difficulty with the Mercator Projection is that to accurately depict the Polar Regions, his map would have to be infinitely tall. Mercator compensated for this by included a polar projection, very similar to the map shown here, in the lower-left hand corner of his great map. This may rightly be considered to be the world's first specific map of the north pole. Mercator later reissued this map in an expanded format for his 1595 atlas. Following a number of important expeditions to the Arctic in subsequent 10 years, Mercator's successor Jodocus Hondius reissued the original 1595 map with a number of revolutionary and highly significant changes. Our survey of this map must naturally being with the North Pole itself which Mercator envisions as a large black rock, the Rupes Nigra , surrounded by a great whirlpool into which four powerful rapid rivers flow. These rivers divide a massive continent sized landmass into four distinct islands or countries. Variants on the magnetic rock them, the Rupes Nigra , can be found in such esteemed references such as the texts of Ptolemy, which identifies sever such. The presence of such a magnetic mountain at the extreme north may have seemed a natural connection for scholars attempting to explain the wonders of the compass. Curiously, though referencing the Inventio Fortunata with regard to the presence of the Rupes Nigra at the Arctic Pole, Mercator does not ascribe to it any magnetic property.