Longitude those points (unless on the equator, where these are equal); the difference is less than . A geographical mile is defined to be the length of one minute of arc along the equator (one equatorial minute of longitude), therefore a degree of longitude along the equator is exactly 60 geographical miles or 111.3 kilometers, as there are 60 minutes in a degree. The length of 1 minute of longitude along the equator is 1 geographical mile or , while the length of 1 second of it is 0.016 geographical mile or . Planetary co-ordinate systems are defined relative to their
Lambert cylindrical equal-area projection as, "Notes and Comments on the Composition of Terrestrial and Celestial Maps". Lambert's projection is the basis for the cylindrical equal-area projection family. Lambert chose the equator as the parallel of no distortion. By multiplying the projection's height by some factor and dividing the width by the same factor, the regions of no distortion can be moved to any desired pair of parallels north and south of the equator. These variations, particularly the Gall–Peters projection, are more commonly encountered in maps than Lambert’s original projection due to their lower distortion overall. where "φ" is the latitude, "λ" is the longitude