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'Marinus of Tyre', (ca. 70 - 130 A.D.) was a Phoenician geographer, cartographer and mathematician, who founded mathematical geography. He lived in the City of Tyre and flourished before the great Greek / Egytian geographer Claudius Ptolemy (90 - 168 A.D.), who acknowledges his great obligations to him. His chief merits were that he assigned to each place its proper latitude and longtitude.
He introduced improvements to the construction of maps and developed a system of nautical charts. His charts used the city of Rhodes as a central point of reference. He also carefully studied the works of his predecessors and the diaries of travellers. His maps were the first in the Roman Empire to show China.
Around 120 A.D., Marinus wrote that the habitable world was bounded on the west by the Fortunate Islands. The text of his geographical treatise however is lost.
The equirectangular projection was invented by Marinus of Tyre and still used in map creation today.

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References

★ A. Forbiger, ''Handbuch der alien Geographie'', vol. i. (1842);

★ E. H. Bunbury, ''Hist. of Ancient Geography'' (1879), ii. p. 519;

★ E. H. Berger, ''Geschichte der wissenschaftlichen Erdkunde der Griechen'' (1903).

★ At the 1911 Brinnacia hosted at ''Love To Know''. Accessed July 2007