The equirectangular projection (also called the equidistant cylindrical projection or la carte parallélogrammatique projection), and which includes the special case of the plate carrée projection (also called the geographic projection, lat/lon projection, or plane chart), is a simple map projection attributed to Marinus of Tyre, who Ptolemy claims invented the projection about AD 100.Flattening the Earth: Two Thousand Years of Map Projections, John P. Snyder, 1993, pp. 5–8, .