A projector generates white light from a laser light source and uses the white light for image display. The white light generator has a rectangular light generating lens that generates excitation light of a rectangular shape from the blue light of a blue laser and a phosphor wheel, coated with a phosphor that is irradiated with the excitation light, to emit yellow light. In the phosphor wheel, a length in the vertical direction of a rectangular shape of an irradiation region is represented by v, and a length in the horizontal direction is represented by h, wherein h