Geographical mile longitude at the equator is thus exactly 60 geographical miles. It was closely related to the nautical mile, which was originally determined as 1 minute of arc along a great circle of the Earth, but is nowadays defined as exactly 1852 metres. The US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) notes that: "The international nautical mile of 1 852 meters (6 076.115 49...feet) was adopted effective July 1, 1954, for use in the United States. The value formerly used in the United States was 6 080.20 feet = 1 nautical (geographical or sea) mile." (6080.2 feet is 1853.24496 meters.)
Cylindrical equal-area projection many named specializations such as Gall–Peters or Gall orthographic, Behrmann, and Lambert cylindrical equal-area). This divides north-south distances by a factor equal to the secant of the latitude, preserving area but heavily distorting shapes. Any particular cylindrical equal-area map has a pair of identical latitudes of opposite sign (or else the equator) at which the east–west scale matches the north–south scale. All cylindrical equal-area projections use the formula: where "λ" is the longitude, "λ" is the central meridian, "φ" is the latitude, and "φ" is the standard latitude, all expressed in radians. Some cartographers prefer to work in degrees, rather