Petrus Plancius

Petrus Plancius (1552 – May 15, 1622) was a Flemish astronomer,  cartographer  and clergyman. He was born as Pieter Platevoet in Dranouter, now in Heuvelland, West Flanders. He studied theology in Germany and England. At the age of 24 he became a minister in the Dutch Reformed Church. 

Cartography
In 1592 he published his best known world map named "Nova et exacta Terrarum Tabula geographica et hydrographica"."New and exact geographic and hydrographic map of the world". He wrote journals and shipping maps. He made a new way for finding longitude. He was the first to use the Mercator projection for navigational maps.

He was one of the founders of the Dutch East India Company. He drew over 100 maps. 

Plancius knew Henry Hudson. Hudson was an explorer of the New World.

Plancius made the map, Exacta & accurata delinatio… regionibus China, Cauchinchina, Camboja, sive Champa, Syao, Malacca, Arracan & Pegu, that was in Jan Huygen van Linschoten’s popular book, Itinerario (1596).Leo Bagrow, History of Cartography, revised and enlarged by R. A. Skelton, London, Watts, 1964, p.265. Exacta & accurata delinatio cum orarum maritimarum tum etiam locorum terrestrium quæ in regionibus China, Cauchinchina, Camboja, sive Champa, Syao, Malacca, Arracan & Pegu ; Cornelis Koeman, Jan Huygen Van Linschoten, Coimbra, Universidade de Coimbra Biblioteca Geral 1, 1984, Centro de Estudos de Historia e Cartografia, Vol.153, pp.39-41. Also in Revista da Universidade de Coimbra, vol.32, 1985, pp.27-47.

Maps

References

Other websites
 Star Tales – the constellations of Petrus Plancius
 Minor planet 10648 Plancius

Category:1552 births
Category:1622 deaths
Category:Cartographers
Category:Christian ministers
Category:Dutch theologians
Category:Dutch astronomers
Category:Dutch Calvinists
Category:People from West Flanders