Gerardus Mercator
Gerardus Mercator was a 16th-century Southern Dutch cartographer and cosmographer. He was renowned for creating the 1569 world map based on a new projection which represented sailing courses of constant bearing as straight lines—an innovation, still employed in nautical charts. Mercator was one of the founders of the Netherlandish school of cartography and is considered the most notable figure of the school in its golden age. In his own day, he was a notable geographer, maker of globes and scientific instruments. In addition, he had interests in theology, history and geomagnetism, he was an accomplished engraver, calligrapher. Unlike other great scholars of the age he travelled little and his knowledge of geography came from his library of over one thousand books and maps, from his visitors and from his vast correspondence with other scholars, travelers and seamen. Mercator's early maps were in large formats suitable for wall mounting but in the second half of his life, he produced over 100 new regional maps in a smaller format suitable for binding into his Atlas of 1595.
This was the first appearance of the word Atlas in a geographical context but Mercator used it as a neologism for a treatise on the creation and description of the universe, not a collection of maps. He chose the word as a commemoration of the Titan Atlas, "King of Mauretania", whom he considered to be the first great geographer. A large part of Mercator's income came from sales of his celestial globes. For sixty years they were considered the finest in the world, were sold in such great numbers that there are many surviving examples; this was a substantial enterprise involving the manufacture of the spheres, printing the gores, building substantial stands and distributing all over Europe. He was renowned for his scientific instruments his astrolabes and astronomical rings used to study the geometry of astronomy and astrology. Mercator wrote on geography, philosophy and theology. All of the wall maps were engraved with copious text on the region concerned; as an example the famous world map of 1569 is inscribed with over 5000 words in fifteen legends.
The 1595 Atlas has about 120 pages of maps and illustrated title pages but a greater number of pages are devoted to his account of the creation of the universe and descriptions of all the countries portrayed. His table of chronology ran to some 400 pages fixing the dates of earthly dynasties, major political and military events, volcanic eruptions and eclipses, he wrote on the gospels and the old testament. Mercator was a devout Christian born into a Catholic family at a time when Martin Luther's Protestantism was gaining ground, he never declared himself as a Lutheran but he was sympathetic and he was accused of heresy. This period of persecution is the major factor in his move from Catholic Leuven to a more tolerant Duisburg where he lived for the last thirty years of his life. Walter Ghim, Mercator's friend and first biographer, describes him as sober in his behaviour, yet cheerful and witty in company, never more happy than in debate with other scholars. Above all he was studious until his dying days.
Gerardus Mercator was born Geert or Gerard Kremer, the seventh child of Hubert Kremer and his wife Emerance in Rupelmonde, a small village to the immediate southwest of Antwerp in the Burgundian Netherlands. His parents resided in Gangelt in the Duchy of Jülich and at the time of the birth, they were visiting Hubert's brother Gisbert de Kremer. Hubert was a poor artisan, a shoemaker by trade, but Gisbert, a priest, was a man of some importance in the community, their stay in Rupelmonde was brief and within six months they returned to Gangelt and there Mercator spent his earliest childhood until the age of six. In 1518, the Kremer family moved back to Rupelmonde motivated by the deteriorating conditions in Gangelt—famine and lawlessness. Mercator would have attended the local school in Rupelmonde from the age of seven, when he arrived from Gangelt, there he would have been taught the basics of reading, writing and Latin. After Hubert's death in 1526, Gisbert became Mercator's guardian. Hoping that Mercator might follow him into the priesthood, he sent the 15-year-old Geert to the famous school of the Brethren of the Common Life at's-Hertogenbosch in the Duchy of Brabant.
The Brotherhood and the school had been founded by the charismatic Geert Groote who placed great emphasis on study of the Bible and, at the same time, expressed disapproval of the dogmas of the church, both facets of the new "heresies" of Martin Luther propounded only a few years earlier in 1517. Mercator would follow similar precepts in life – with problematic outcomes. During his time at the school the headmaster was Georgius Macropedius, under his guidance Geert would study the Bible, the trivium and classics such as the philosophy of Aristotle, the natural history of Pliny and the geography of Ptolemy. All teaching at the school was in Latin and he would read and converse in Latin – and give himself a new Latin name, Gerardus Mercator Rupelmundanus, Mercator being the Latin translation of Kremer, which means "merchant"; the Brethren were renowned for their scriptorium and here Mercator might have encountered the italic script which he employed in his work. The brethren were renowned for their thoroughness
Globe
A globe is a spherical model of Earth, of some other celestial body, or of the celestial sphere. Globes serve similar purposes to maps, but unlike maps, do not distort the surface that they portray except to scale it down. A globe of Earth is called a terrestrial globe. A globe of the celestial sphere is called a celestial globe. A globe shows details of its subject. A terrestrial globe shows land masses and water bodies, it might show the network of latitude and longitude lines. Some have raised relief to show mountains. A celestial globe shows stars, may show positions of other prominent astronomical objects, it will divide the celestial sphere up into constellations. The word "globe" comes from the Latin word globus, meaning "sphere". Globes have a long history; the first known mention of a globe is from Strabo, describing the Globe of Crates from about 150 BC. The oldest surviving terrestrial globe is the Erdapfel, wrought by Martin Behaim in 1492; the oldest surviving celestial globe sits atop the Farnese Atlas, carved in the 2nd century Roman Empire.
Flat maps are created using a map projection that introduces an increasing amount of distortion the larger the area that the map shows. A globe is the only representation of the Earth that does not distort either the shape or the size of large features – land masses, bodies of water, etc; the Earth's circumference is quite close to 40 million metres. Many globes are made with a circumference of one metre, so they are models of the Earth at a scale of 1:40 million. In imperial units, many globes are made with a diameter of one foot, yielding a circumference of 3.14 feet and a scale of 1:41,777,000. Globes are made in many other sizes. Sometimes a globe has surface texture showing topography. Most modern globes are imprinted with parallels and meridians, so that one can tell the approximate coordinates of a specific place. Globes may show the boundaries of countries and their names. Many terrestrial globes have one celestial feature marked on them: a diagram called the analemma, which shows the apparent motion of the Sun in the sky during a year.
Globes show north at the top, but many globes allow the axis to be swiveled so that southern portions can be viewed conveniently. This capability permits exploring the earth from different orientations to help counter the north-up bias caused by conventional map presentation. Celestial globes show the apparent positions of the stars in the sky, they omit the Sun and planets because the positions of these bodies vary relative to those of the stars, but the ecliptic, along which the Sun moves, is indicated. The sphericity of the Earth was established by Greek astronomy in the 3rd century BC, the earliest terrestrial globe appeared from that period; the earliest known example is the one constructed by Crates of Mallus in Cilicia, in the mid-2nd century BC. No terrestrial globes from Antiquity or the Middle Ages have survived. An example of a surviving celestial globe is part of a Hellenistic sculpture, called the Farnese Atlas, surviving in a 2nd-century AD Roman copy in the Naples Archaeological Museum, Italy.
Early terrestrial globes depicting the entirety of the Old World were constructed in the Islamic world. According to David Woodward, one such example was the terrestrial globe introduced to Beijing by the Persian astronomer, Jamal ad-Din, in 1267; the earliest extant terrestrial globe was made in 1492 by Martin Behaim with help from the painter Georg Glockendon. Behaim was a German mapmaker and merchant. Working in Nuremberg, Germany, he called his globe the "Nürnberg Terrestrial Globe." It is now known as the Erdapfel. Before constructing the globe, Behaim had traveled extensively, he sojourned in Lisbon from 1480, developing commercial interests and mingling with explorers and scientists. In 1485–1486, he sailed with Portuguese explorer Diogo Cão to the coast of West Africa, he began to construct his globe after his return to Nürnberg in 1490. Another early globe, the Hunt–Lenox Globe, ca. 1510, is thought to be the source of the phrase Hic Sunt Dracones, or “Here be dragons”. A similar grapefruit-sized globe made from two halves of an ostrich egg was found in 2012 and is believed to date from 1504.
It may be the oldest globe. Stefaan Missine, who analyzed the globe for the Washington Map Society journal Portolan, said it was “part of an important European collection for decades.” After a year of research in which he consulted many experts, Missine concluded the Hunt–Lenox Globe was a copper cast of the egg globe. A facsimile globe showing America was made by Martin Waldseemueller in 1507. Another "remarkably modern-looking" terrestrial globe of the Earth was constructed by Taqi al-Din at the Constantinople Observatory of Taqi ad-Din during the 1570s; the world’s first seamless celestial globe was built by Mughal scientists under the patronage of Jahangir. Globus IMP, electro-mechanical devices including five-inch globes have been used in Soviet and Russian spacecraft from 1961 to 2002 as navigation instruments. In 2001, the TMA version of the Soyuz spacecraft replaced this instrument with a virtual globe. In the 1800s small pocket globes were status symbols for gentlemen and educational toys for rich children.
Traditionally, globes were manufactured by gluing a printed paper map onto a sphere made from wood. The most common type has long, thin gores of paper that narrow to a point at the poles, small disks cover over the inevitable irregularities at these points; the more gores there are, the less stretching and crumpling is required to make the paper map fit the sphere. This method of globe
Taschen
Taschen is an art book publisher founded in 1980 by Benedikt Taschen in Cologne, Germany. As of January 2017, Taschen is co-managed by his eldest daughter, Marlene Taschen; the company began as Taschen Comics. Taschen has been a pioneer in making lesser-seen art available to mainstream bookstores, including some fetishistic imagery, queer art, historical erotica and adult magazines; the firm has brought controversial art into broader public view, publishing it alongside its more mainstream books of comics reprints, art photography, design, advertising history and architecture. Taschen publications are available in a variety of sizes, from oversized tomes to small pocket-sized books; the company has produced calendars, address books, postcards sets. In 1985, Taschen introduced the Basic Art series with an inaugural title on Salvador Dalí; the series today comprises over 100 titles available in up to thirty languages, each about a separate artist, from classical to contemporary. Further series followed, alongside an expansion into new themes like architecture, design and lifestyle.
As an example, the firm publishes a “Basic Architecture” series in the same style as “Basic Art” that covers some of the most prominent architects in history. In the spring of 2014, the firm’s Basic Art Series was criticised in Swedish public media for its focus on male artists; the series consisted of 95 books, only 5 of which were about female artists. Malmö Konsthall in Sweden was the first institution to report the disparity highlighted by the artists Ditte Ejlerskov and EvaMarie Lindahl. In 1999, Taschen expanded to the luxury market with the Helmut Newton SUMO. Signed and limited to 10,000 copies, the folio-sized publication sold out and became the most expensive book published in the 20th century, with SUMO copy number 1selling at auction for $304,000; this book paved the way for Taschen’s GOAT – Greatest Of All Time, an homage to Muhammad Ali, which Der Spiegel called “the biggest, most radiant thing printed in the history of civilization.”Further Collector’s Editions followed, including titles with Nobuyoshi Araki, Peter Beard, David Hockney, David LaChapelle, Sebastião Salgado, Annie Leibovitz and the Rolling Stones reaching ten times their original price within a few years.
Taschen Basic Architecture is a series of books on architects, published by Taschen. Each book looks at a different architect, with a biography, pictures of their work. Taschen’s Bibliotheca universalis is a series of popular art works in an affordable hardback format, they are trilingual, with texts and legends in English and French. Some books are published in Spanish and Portuguese. Through the mid- to late 1990s, the company’s sales structure was expanded through the opening of stores in other cities. Dedicated flagship Taschen bookstores, conceived in collaboration with artists and designers as Albert Oehlen, Beatriz Milhazes, Jonas Wood, Marc Newson, Mark Grotjahn, Philippe Starck, Toby Ziegler, are located in: Amsterdam Beverly Hills Berlin Brussels Cologne Dallas Hamburg Hong Kong Los Angeles London Miami Milan New York City ParisThe firm has publishing offices in Berlin, London, Los Angeles and Hong Kong. Between 2014 and 2018, Taschen owned and curated its own 6,000-square feet art gallery space in Los Angeles, featuring exhibitions on Michael Muller, Mick Rock, Ellen von Unwerth and Albert Watson.
The publishing house employs more than 250 staff members worldwide and many longtime freelance editors. Bernhard, Brendan. "Sex & Beauty, Art & Kitsch: The Exquisite Mayhem of Benedikt Taschen". LA Weekly. Retrieved 5 July 2014. Kirkpatrick, David D.. "Price Cutting and Oversupply Imperil Art Book Houses". The New York Times. Retrieved 23 May 2008. Official website
John Speed
John Speed was an English cartographer and historian. He is, alongside Christopher Saxton, one of the best known English mapmakers of the early modern period. Speed was born at Farndon and went into the tailoring business of his father, Samuel in life. While working in London, Speed was a tailor and member of a corresponding guild, came to the attention of "learned" individuals; these individuals included Sir Fulke Greville, who subsequently made him an allowance to enable him to devote his whole attention to research. By 1598 he had enough patronage to leave his manual labour job and "engage in full-time scholarship"; as a reward for his earlier efforts, Queen Elizabeth granted Speed the use of a room in the Custom House. Speed, was, by this point, as "tailor turned scholar" who had a developed "pictorial sense". In 1575, Speed married a woman named Susanna Draper in London having children with her; these children included a son named John Speed a "learned" man with a doctorate, an unknown number of others, since chroniclers and historians cannot agree on how many children they raised.
Regardless, there is no doubt that the Speed family was well-off. By 1595, Speed published a map of biblical Canaan, in 1598 he presented his maps to Queen Elizabeth, in 1611–1612 he published maps of Great Britain, with his son assisting Speed in surveys of English towns. At age 77 or 78, in August 1629, Speed died, he was buried alongside his wife in London's St Giles-without-Cripplegate church on Fore Street. On, a memorial to John Speed was erected behind the altar of the church. According to the church's website, " one of the few memorials that survived the bombing" of London during The Blitz of 1940–1941... The website notes that "he cast for the niche in which the bust is placed was provided by the Merchant Taylors' Company, of which John Speed was a member", his memorial brass has ended up on display in the Burrell Collection near Glasgow. Speed drew historical maps in 1601 and 1627 depicting the invasion of England and Ireland, depictions of the English Middle Ages, along with those depicting the current time, with rough originals but appealing, colourful final versions of his maps.
It was with the encouragement of William Camden that Speed began his Historie of Great Britaine, published in 1611. Although he had access to historical sources that are now lost to us, his work as a historian is now considered secondary in importance to his map-making, of which his most important contribution is his town plans, many of which provide the first visual record of the British towns they depict. In the years leading up to this point, while his atlas was being compiled, he sent letters to Robert Cotton, part of the British government to ask for assistance in gathering necessary materials, his atlas The Theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine was published in 1611 and 1612, contained the first set of individual county maps of England and Wales besides maps of Ireland and a general map of Scotland. Tacked onto these maps was an introduction at the beginning when he addressed his "well affected and favourable reader", which had numerous Christian and religious undertones, admitting that there may be errors, but he made it the best he could, stated his purpose for the atlas: my purpose...is to shew the situation of every Citie and Shire-town only...
I have separated... help of the tables...any Citie, Borough, Hamlet, or Place of Note... may be affirmed, that there is not any one Kingdome in the world so described...as is... Great Britaine... In shewing these things, I have chiefly sought to give satisfaction to all. With maps as "proof impressions" and printed from copper plates, detail was engraved in reverse with writing having to be put on the map the correct way, while speed "copied and compiled the work of others", not doing much of the survey work on his own, which he acknowledged; the atlas was not above projections of his political opinions" Speed represented King James I as one who unified the "Kingdoms of the British isles". In 2016, the British Library published a book, introduced by former MP Nigel Nicolson and accompanied by commentaries by late medieval and early modern historian Alasdair Hawkyard, which reprinted this collection of maps on the British Isles, showing that Speed had drawn maps of areas ranging from Bedfordshire to Norfolk and Wales.
Most, but not all, of the county maps have town plans on them. In 1627, two years before his death, Speed published Prospect of the Most Famous Parts of the World, the first world atlas produced by an Englishman, costing 40 shillings, meaning that its circulation was limited to "richer customers and libraries", where many survive to this day. There is a fascinating text describing the areas shown on the back of the maps in English, although a rare edition of 1616 of the British maps has a Latin text – this is believed to have been produced for the Continental market. Much of the engraving was done in Amsterdam at the workshop of a Flemish man named Jodocus Hondius, with whom he collaborated with from 1598 until 1612, with Hondius's sudden death, a time period of 14 years, his maps of English and Welsh counties bordered with costumed figures ranging from nobility to country folk, are found framed in homes throughout the United Kingdom. In 1611, he published The genealogies recorded in the Sacred Scriptures according to euery family and tribe with the line of Our Sauior Jesus Christ obserued from Adam to the Blessed Virgin Mary, a biblical genealogy, reprinted several times
Editing
Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, visual and film media used to convey information. The editing process can involve correction, condensation and many other modifications performed with an intention of producing a correct, consistent and complete work; the editing process begins with the author's idea for the work itself, continuing as a collaboration between the author and the editor as the work is created. Editing can involve human relations and a precise set of methods. There are various editorial positions in publishing. One finds editorial assistants reporting to the senior-level editorial staff and directors who report to senior executive editors. Senior executive editors are responsible for developing a product for its final release; the smaller the publication, the more these roles overlap. The top editor at many publications may be known as the chief editor, executive editor, or the editor. A frequent and regarded contributor to a magazine may acquire the title of editor-at-large or contributing editor.
Mid-level newspaper editors manage or help to manage sections, such as business and features. In U. S. newspapers, the level below the top editor is the managing editor. In the book publishing industry, editors may organize anthologies and other compilations, produce definitive editions of a classic author's works, organize and manage contributions to a multi-author book. Obtaining manuscripts or recruiting authors is the role of an acquisitions editor or a commissioning editor in a publishing house. Finding marketable ideas and presenting them to appropriate authors are the responsibilities of a sponsoring editor. Copy editors correct spelling and align writings to house style. Changes to the publishing industry since the 1980s have resulted in nearly all copy editing of book manuscripts being outsourced to freelance copy editors. At newspapers and wire services, copy editors write headlines and work on more substantive issues, such as ensuring accuracy and taste. In some positions, they select news stories for inclusion.
At U. K. and Australian newspapers, the term is sub-editor. They may communicate with the printer; these editors may have the title of makeup editor. Within the publishing environment, editors of scholarly books are of three main types, each with particular responsibilities: Acquisitions editor, who contracts with the author to produce the copy Project editor or production editor, who sees the copy through its stages from manuscript to bound book and assumes most of the budget and schedule responsibilities Copy editor or manuscript editor, who prepares the copy for conversion into printed form. In the case of multi-author edited volumes, before the manuscript is delivered to the publisher it has undergone substantive and linguistic editing by the volume's editor, who works independently of the publisher; as for scholarly journals, where spontaneous submissions are more common than commissioned works, the position of journal editor or editor-in-chief replaces the acquisitions editor of the book publishing environment, while the roles of production editor and copy editor remain.
However, another editor is sometimes involved in the creation of scholarly research articles. Called the authors' editor, this editor works with authors to get a manuscript fit for purpose before it is submitted to a scholarly journal for publication; the primary difference between copy editing scholarly books and journals and other sorts of copy editing lies in applying the standards of the publisher to the copy. Most scholarly publishers have a preferred style that specifies a particular dictionary and style manual—for example, the Chicago Manual of Style, the MLA Style Manual or the APA Publication Manual in the US, or the New Hart's Rules in the U. K. Technical editing involves reviewing text written on a technical topic, identifying usage errors and ensuring adherence to a style guide. Technical editing may include the correction of grammatical mistakes, mistyping, incorrect punctuation, inconsistencies in usage, poorly structured sentences, wrong scientific terms, wrong units and dimensions, inconsistency in significant figures, technical ambivalence, technical disambiguation, statements conflicting with general scientific knowledge, correction of synopsis, index and subheadings, correcting data and chart presentation in a research paper or report, correcting errors in citations.
Large companies dedicate experienced writers to the technical editing function. Organizations that cannot afford dedicated editors have experienced writers peer-edit text produced by less experienced colleagues, it helps. The "technical" knowledge that an editor gains over time while working on a particular product or technology does give the editor an edge over another who has just started editing content related to that product or technology, but essential general skills are attention to detail, the ability to sustain focus while working through lengthy pieces of text on complex topics, tact in dealing with writers, excellent communication skills. Editing is a growing field of work in the service industry. Paid editing services may be provided by self-employed editors. Editing firms may employ a team of in-house editors, rely on a network of individual contractors or both; such firms are able to handle editing in a wide range of topics and genres, depending on the skills of individual editors
History of cartography
Cartography, or mapmaking, has been an integral part of human history for millions of years. From cave paintings to ancient maps of Babylon and Asia, through the Age of Discovery, on into the 21st century, people have created and used maps as essential tools to help them define and navigate their way through the world. Maps began as two-dimensional drawings but can adopt three-dimensional shapes and be stored in purely numerical forms; the term cartography is modern, loaned into English from French cartographie in the 1840s, based on Middle Latin carta "map". The earliest known maps are of the stars, not the earth. Dots dating to 14,500 BC found on the walls of the Lascaux caves map out part of the night sky, including the three bright stars Vega and Altair, as well as the Pleiades star cluster; the Cuevas de El Castillo in Spain contain a dot map of the Corona Borealis constellation dating from 12,000 BC. Cave painting and rock carvings used simple visual elements that may have aided in recognizing landscape features, such as hills or dwellings.
A map-like representation of a mountain, river and routes around Pavlov in the Czech Republic has been dated to 25,000 BC, a 14,000 BC polished chunk of sandstone from a cave in Spanish Navarre may represent similar features superimposed on animal etchings, although it may represent a spiritual landscape, or simple incisings. Another ancient picture that resembles a map was created in the late 7th millennium BC in Çatalhöyük, modern Turkey; this wall painting may represent a plan of this Neolithic village. Maps in Ancient Babylonia were made by using accurate surveying techniques. For example, a 7.6 × 6.8 cm clay tablet found in 1930 at Ga-Sur, near contemporary Kirkuk, shows a map of a river valley between two hills. Cuneiform inscriptions label the features on the map, including a plot of land described as 354 iku, owned by a person called Azala. Most scholars date the tablet to the 25th to 24th century BC; the map is marked to show the cardinal directions. An engraved map from the Kassite period of Babylonian history shows walls and buildings in the holy city of Nippur.
In contrast, the Babylonian World Map, the earliest surviving map of the world, is a symbolic, not a literal representation. It deliberately omits peoples such as the Persians and Egyptians, who were well known to the Babylonians; the area shown is depicted as a circular shape surrounded by water, which fits the religious image of the world in which the Babylonians believed. Examples of maps from ancient Egypt are quite rare. However, those that have survived show an emphasis on geometry and well-developed surveying techniques stimulated by the need to re-establish the exact boundaries of properties after the annual Nile floods; the Turin Papyrus Map, dated c. 1160 BC, shows the mountains east of the Nile where gold and silver were mined, along with the location of the miners' shelters and the road network that linked the region with the mainland. Its originality can be seen in the map's inscriptions, its precise orientation, the use of color. In reviewing the literature of early geography and early conceptions of the earth, all sources lead to Homer, considered by many as the founding father of Geography.
Regardless of the doubts about Homer's existence, one thing is certain: he never was a mapmaker. The depiction of the Earth conceived by Homer, accepted by the early Greeks, represents a circular flat disk surrounded by a moving stream of Ocean, an idea which would be suggested by the appearance of the horizon as it is seen from a mountaintop or from a seacoast. Homer's knowledge of the Earth was limited, he and his Greek contemporaries knew little of the Earth beyond Egypt as far south as the Libyan desert, the south-west coast of Asia Minor, the northern boundary of the Greek homeland. Furthermore, the coast of the Black Sea was only known through myths and legends that circulated during his time. In his poems there is no mention of Asia as geographical concepts; that is why the big part of Homer's world, portrayed on this interpretive map represents lands that border on the Aegean Sea. It is worth noting that though Greeks believed that they were in the middle of the earth, they thought that the edges of the world's disk were inhabited by savage, monstrous barbarians and strange animals and monsters.
Additional statements about ancient geography may be found in Hesiod's poems written during the 8th century BC. Through the lyrics of Works and Days and Theogony he shows to his contemporaries some definite geographical knowledge, he introduces the names of such rivers as Nile, the shores of the Bosporus, the Euxine, the coast of Gaul, the island of Sicily, a few other regions and rivers. His advanced geographical knowledge not only had predated Greek colonial expansions, but was used in the earliest Greek world maps, produced by Greek mapmakers such as Anaximander and Hecataeus of Miletus, Ptolemy using both observations by explorers and a mathematical approach. Early steps in the development of intellectual thought in ancient Greece belonged to Ionians from their well-known city of Miletus in Asia Minor. Miletus was placed favourably to absorb aspects of Babylonian knowledge and to profit from the expanding commerce of the Mediterranean; the earliest ancient Greek, said to
Damrak
The Damrak is an avenue and filled in canal at the centre of Amsterdam, running between Amsterdam Centraal in the north and Dam Square in the south. It is the main street, it is one of the two GVB tram routes from the station into the centre, with lines 4, 9, 16, 25 running down it. It is on the route of the North/South Line being constructed between the existing metro station at Centraal Station and the new Rokin station; the street was located on a straight part of the Amstel river near a dam. In the 19th century, a section of it was filled in; because of the former stock exchange building, the monumental Beurs van Berlage, several other buildings related to financial activities erected there in the early 20th century, the term "Damrak" has come to be a synonym for the Amsterdam Stock Exchange in the same way "Wall Street" is synonymous with the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ. The Beurs van Berlage now serves as a exhibition hall. Today, the area is known for its restaurants and tourist shops.
Its canals serve as a busy area for canal boats, as well
