![Whole world](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8f/Whole_world_-_land_and_oceans_12000.jpg/500px-Whole_world_-_land_and_oceans_12000.jpg)
Composite satellite image of the whole world in a plate carrée projection, a very simple map projection that has been in use since the earliest days of spherical cartography. The name is from the French for "flat and square". It is a special case of the equidistant cylindrical projection in which the horizontal coordinate is the longitude and the vertical coordinate is the latitude.