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Having the East at the top of the map is very common. That’s why they call it “the orient”.

• seisvelas 7y ago
  >That’s why they call it “the orient”. Not challenging your claim that East-on-top is common (since I have no idea), but: it's called the orient because oriens is Latin for rising, and the sun rises in the east. Many other languages also have a word for east based on their word for rising. For a cursory reading, check out the Wiki article on the etymology Orient: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orient#Etymology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orient#Etymology
  • samatman 7y ago
    The grandparent comment makes a valid point, just backwards. The reason orientation and orienteering contain the string "orient" is because Europeans historically put the East at the top of maps, a practice which changed some time after the introduction of the compass. Which points North, unless it points South; Chinese maps traditionally put the South at the top. Here's an example of such a map, of the form known as "T and O": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_world_maps#/media/File:Diagrammatic_T-O_world_map_-_12th_c.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_world_maps#/media/File:D... It's interesting to me that, as moderns, we barely recognize such a stylized image as a map.
    • csours 7y ago
      I learned more than I expected about maps. So so you think it was a style decision in the late 1800's to make a map with the top facing east? Or was it still common?
      • samatman 7y ago
        North was pretty standard by the 1800s, or indeed by the 1600s. But there's a map in the public library of my hometown, showing it in 1890, in which the Old West Side is at the top of the map. So I'd guess that non-standard orientations were more common than they are now.
• deleted 7y ago
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