This is the so-called "Mercator point" 📍 in northwestern Germany near the Dutch border. Cartographer Gerhard Mercator lived there for a few years as a child.
Mercator point
This is the so-called "Mercator point" 📍 in northwestern Germany near the Dutch border. Cartographer Gerhard Mercator lived there for a few years as a child.
8 Comments
otter@lemmy.ca · 13 pts · 225d
Oh, I thought this was going to be something like the prime meridian, but for the mercator projection
Still cool
rom255@feddit.org · 6 pts · 225d
https://osm.org/go/0GBgYAGCG
sik0fewl@piefed.ca · 1 pts · 225d
That does not appear to be the same point. The inscriptions are different.
rom255@feddit.org · 2 pts · 225d
It is, been there and took the photo 🙂
sik0fewl@piefed.ca · 1 pts · 225d
Ok. Maybe the inscription is different on the other side? It says 51 degrees in your picture, but 6 degrees in the photos I see on Google Maps.
zout@fedia.io · 4 pts · 225d
Nice one, but not in northwestern Germany; It is near the Dutch border, but it's the most southern part of the Netherlands, which would be about dead center on the north-south axis of Germany.
SillyMe@piefed.social · 3 pts · 225d
interesting. why did they make it so phallic?
Tuuktuuk@anarchist.nexus · 2 pts · 225d
It might have looked much less phallic when it had not gotten weathered like it's now. And maybe all kinds of columns were more commonplace back then, in general? You don't really see new columns being erected (no pun indented) these days.