The principall nauigations, voiages, and discoueries of the English nation : made by sea or ouer land to the most remote and farthest distant quarters of the earth at any time within the compasse of these 1500 yeeres : deuided into three seuerall parts ... the first conteining the personall trauels of the English vnto Iudea, Syria, Arabia ... the second comprehending the worthy discoueries of the English towards the north and northeast by sea as of Lapland ... the third and last including the English valiant attempts in searching almost all the corners of the vaste and new world of America ... : whereunto is added the last most renowmed English nauigation, round about the whole globe of the Earth /

The geography discoveries and the new printing techniques resulted in maps that can be cheaply produced. Since a globe remains the only accurate way of representing the spherical earth, and any flat representation resulted in distorted projection. In 1569, Mercator published a map of the world specifically intended as an aid to navigation. It used a projection now known by Mercator's name, though it has been used by few others before him, based on a system of latitude and longitude that dated back to Hipparchus. Mercator's projection greatly enlarged territories as they recede from the equator. The distortion of Mercator's projection is a benefit to navigators since Mercator achieves a matching scale for longitude and latitude in every section of the map. A compass course can be plotted at the same angle on any part of Mercator's map. As a result marine charts still use this projection. By the time of his death in 1595, Mercator has either published or prepared large engraved maps, designed for binding into volume form, of France, Germany, Italy, the Balkans, and the British Isles. Mercator's son issues the entire series under the title "Atlas": "Atlas sive Cosmographicae Meditationes." The name becomes the word for a volume of maps.