21 ms·

This map is not upside down

• hdgvhicv 1y ago
  On a globe it is typically lower than your viewing height. It thus makes sense it have the useful parts (land) at the top.
• tengbretson 1y ago
  I guess they didn't come from a land down under after all.
• hyperhello 1y ago
  > Psychologically, we tend to view things nearer the top as ‘good’ and those lower as ‘bad.’ This, of course, is the point of the article. It was so predictable that it made me wonder: who is telling me that top is good and lower is bad? The articles themselves.
  • nomdep 1y ago
    And the follow up question: why the author want to flip the map to see the countries at the top as bad and the lower ones as good?
  • hidroto 1y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_North_and_Global_South https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_North_and_Global_South
    • alabhyajindal 1y ago
      First time seeing this and it feels so offensive. I'm somewhat okay with the term developed and developing countries, though not too much [1]. But this just feels discriminatory. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factfulness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factfulness
      • micromacrofoot 1y ago
        it is discriminatory, though that wasn't the original intention
      • incr_me 1y ago
        Offensive how? "Developing" and "things aren't so bad" are offensive because they obfuscate imperialist relations. That's the position of the theorists who use "Global North"/"South", anyway. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_North_and_Global_South#Theories_explaining_the_divide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_North_and_Global_South#... What do you mean by discriminatory?
        • alabhyajindal 1y ago
          I haven't read the link you posted because I want to expand on my initial reaction. A layman who is not familiar with the reasons behind Global North/South would not think about imperialist relations. I'm somewhat okay with "developing" because the term is easier to understand: some countries are less developed than others. Plus the terms are fluid. If a country becomes developed enough then they switch labels. Global North/South makes no sense at all, again from a layman's perspective. From the original story: > Psychologically, we tend to view things nearer the top as ‘good’ and those lower as ‘bad.’ When I see Australia in the southern hemisphere being characterised as "North", I think that the creator of this term is discriminating against countries they consider inferior. There is no room for growth here. A country being characterised as "South" will always be as such, because intuitively we know we can't switch geographies.
          • incr_me 1y ago
            Right, in my experience it's a distinction that's offensive to the "Northern" camp that thinks about the disparity in terms of each country's independent "growth"/"progress"/development". It also offends "would-be Northerners", i.e. comprador/petty bourgeois individuals located geographically in the "South", for similar reasons. To complicate matters, dependency theorists were themselves petty bourgeois apologists of the Non-Aligned Movement. It's just that times have changed, just like how "American Indian" is preferred by the older generation because "Native" and "Indigenous" are impositions of liberalism, even though the newer generation may prefer the latter labels. Personally I don't care what language is being used as long as the real conditions are being brought to light. Persecutory investigations into psychology on these matters are dead ends. The successful adoption of "Native" and "developing" did not liberate.
    • thw_9a83c 1y ago
      Such grouping is based on dubious theories. For example, China is classified as a "developing economy" (red), even though it is one of only three countries with the independent capability to send humans into Earth's orbit using its own launch systems and spacecraft.
      • gowld 1y ago
        China (and India) are near the border, which is creeping downward as nations develop economically. Australia is the funny one.
      • Legend2440 1y ago
        China has had massive economic growth in recent years, but were undisputedly a developing country prior to that growth. They may deserve to be reclassified now, although their GDP per capita is still much lower than the US.
        • simonh 1y ago
          Only because their population is so huge. Their Dollar GDP is about 2/3 that of the USA and is 4.5x that of Japan. In a sense it’s set of highly developed urban industrial zones that also has a massive underdeveloped rural area.
          • freefrog334433 1y ago
            GDP PPP is being used to compare countries productivity more often now. Australia has high GDP but low productivity as most is sunk into expensive, unproductive real estate. Every country has their rust belts and undeveloped rural areas.
          • smsm42 1y ago
            And that's why it is called "developing" - because some parts are developed but some are massively underdeveloped.
            • 1y ago
    • tintor 1y ago
      How is Australia part of Global North? :)
      • decimalenough 1y ago
        North is 0-127, South is 128-255. When you go south enough, the 8-bit counter overflows and that's how Australia becomes North. Alternatively, "Global North" is just code for "white", with a few apartheid-style token "honorary whites" like Japan added. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honorary_whites https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honorary_whites
    • koyote 1y ago
      That is such an odd list. I also love that Singapore is both 'developing' on this list and int the Small Island Developing States list, despite it easily being in the top 10 of most developed countries in the world.
      • shirro 1y ago
        Yep, living in a de-industrialised, undiversified economy, second most southern in the global north I can only wish by kids had access to a Singaporean education. Regional politics is complicated. Australia needs to be in the ASEAN group. We have common interests in regional security and stability and have complementary capabilities and resources. But its convenient to label us as outsiders and characterise us as imperialists or American agents (which sadly we sort of are but give us some options). Doesn't matter that we are right here and 20% of our population originated from the asian countries to the north of us. For some reason we are on the imperialist side.
  • davidczech 1y ago
    I'd bet a lot of this behavior is heavily correlated with how we generally read top to bottom, which is in itself, probably an arbitrary decision made by ancient text writers.
    • vman81 1y ago
      Writing top to bottom, and even left to right has/had advantages for mostly right-handed writers to avoid moving your hand over and smudging previously written text.
      • mitthrowaway2 1y ago
        How would top-to-bottom benefit right-handed writers any more than left-handed ones?
        • hyperhello 1y ago
          And why would that make the top better than the bottom anyway? That's like saying the meal is worse after you finish it.
          • scubbo 1y ago
            Because of Primacy Bias.
          • WD-42 1y ago
            Because your arm doesn't cover the text as you are writing.
        • roarcher 1y ago
          Top to bottom advantages everyone. Left to right advantages the right-handed. Right handed being the majority, top to bottom and left to right wins in almost every writing system.
      • InitialLastName 1y ago
        Writing top-to-bottom has advantages for all writers whose eyes are above their hands. The bit of the writing surface that's blocked by your hand hasn't been written on yet.
  • y-curious 1y ago
    They link this[1] article, which I don't plan to read. I, too, rolled my eyes. 1: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1948550611401042 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/194855061140104...
    • dvt 1y ago
      I read it and their methodology is embarassingly bad, especially for the kind of study that can be done en masse so easily (heck, a Twitter poll would be more useful). N=28, where all were undergraduates, and 24 were women. Could easily be influenced by the college campus, location, student housing, etc. It's literally the kind of project you'd do in middle school for a science fair. Absolutely terrible study. Full paper is here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/258189192_Spatial_Metaphor_and_Real_Estate_North-South_Location_Biases_Housing_Preference https://www.researchgate.net/publication/258189192_Spatial_M...
      • Affric 1y ago
        This is always done. Studies of American college students to prove some sort of universal rule about human psychology. There’s embarrassing papers that get published in every field but social sciences is where they always try and put a moralistic element in as well. Sigh.
  • alwa 1y ago
    I mean, and.. with the map South-up, all the stuff is crammed down at the bottom now, no? Aren’t most of the people and land and things in the North part? A casual Google [0] suggests 88% of the humans, for example? I don’t understand the “good” and “bad” thing, but it does make sense to me that you scan something “earlier” or “later” in casting your eye across a mass of stuff. If we read from top to bottom… doesn't it make sense to put the part where the stuff is earlier in order than the part with mainly oceans? It makes slightly more sense to me to argue about which continental masses should go on the left or the right of the map, e.g. [1]. Although compositionally, if you put the Eurasian continent on the left side (“first” for left-to-right readers), doesn’t the massive Pacific exaggerate the impression of a discontinuity or a vast gap between geographical clusters of humans? [0] https://brilliantmaps.com/human-hemisphere/#:~:text=88%25%20of%20humanity%20lives%20in%20the%20Northern%20Hemisphere. https://brilliantmaps.com/human-hemisphere/#:~:text=88%25%20... [1] https://www.mapresources.com/products/world-digital-vector-raster-terrain-map-miller-955326 https://www.mapresources.com/products/world-digital-vector-r...
    • bobsmooth 1y ago
      >I don’t understand the “good” and “bad” thing The author has an inferiority complex.
      • bandie91 1y ago
        the author wants to reinforce the lower instinct in people around the world of being tribal rivals toward each other across heavily averaged-out economic indicators in the geographically northern and southern regions of the globe.
  • schoen 1y ago
    At one point a character in Eco's Foucault's Pendulum says "archetypes don't exist, the body exists" and then gives some sexual and reproductive examples, followed by > And high is better than low, because if you have your head down, the blood goes to your brain, because feet stink and hair doesn’t stink as much, because it’s better to climb a tree and pick fruit than end up underground, food for worms, and because you rarely hurt yourself hitting something above—you really have to be in an attic—while you often hurt yourself falling. That’s why up is angelic and down devilish. You could also argue that because of gravity and potential energy, up is usually the result of purposive action and effort, while down is often the result of accident or neglect ("you often hurt yourself falling"). That potential energy (and wide-open space) can also be used for maneuvering, so if two people or other creatures are fighting, one who is higher is generally at an advantage compared to one who is lower or lying on the ground. The lower party has less energy available to direct toward the opponent, and usually less room to move, being more constrained by the presence of the ground.
    • hobs 1y ago
      > so if two people or other creatures are fighting, one who is higher is generally at an advantage compared to one who is lower or lying on the ground Tell that to a BJJ fighter.
      • ghurtado 1y ago
        Only an Anakin Skywalker vs Royce Gracey fight can settle this question once and for all.
      • gowld 1y ago
        I'll send the message via DJI drone.
      • DwnVoteHoneyPot 1y ago
        BJJ fighters still think higher up is an advantage. Body weight to press down on opponent, greater freedom of movement.
        • 1y ago
  • deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  • paxys 1y ago
    Really? Before you read this article you never associated being on top = good and being at the bottom = bad?
    • blueflow 1y ago
      Probably as kid, but at some point in maturing you learn that what you consider good/bad is your own prejudice and working off that is going to cause social troubles.
    • themaninthedark 1y ago
      I'm going to catch a movie downtown, about a plucky underdog from one of the Low Countries, NETHERland in particular.
    • bromuro 1y ago
      Doesn’t the meaning of a word depend from its context ? Why the bottom of a map should be “bad”?
  • deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  • notmyjob 1y ago
    Heaven and hell, not hell and heaven. The stock market goes up as spirits rise.
  • rafram 1y ago
    Started at the bottom, now we're here. Up-and-coming. Top-of-the-line. I could go on, but I don't want to get you down.
    • staplers 1y ago
      Our eyes are at the top of our body and humans are generally tall (standing up). You look forward and then look down naturally. We generally read top down because of this. We generally want the bulk of information at the same level as our eyes. It's why tv's aren't on the ground. I feel like many are overthinking this.
  • abtinf 1y ago
    Those who claim the top is viewed as good by most people would also have to defend the claim that most people are Alaskan supremacists.
    • Rebelgecko 1y ago
      They're subservient to Santa, who is the uppermost
  • kens 1y ago
    I highly recommend the book "Metaphors We Live By", which discusses how metaphors are not arbitrary, but are part of schemas. For instance, there are whole classes of orientational metaphors that fall into the schemas: "more is up, less is down", "good is up, bad is down", "virtue is up, depravity is down", "rational is up, emotional is down", "having control is up, being subject to control is down", and so on. (Yes, I'm sure you're clever enough to find counterexamples.) This is a thought-provoking book that changed how I view the world, so check it out. The book: https://archive.org/details/lakoff-george-metaphors-we-live-by_202508/page/14/mode/2up?view=theater https://archive.org/details/lakoff-george-metaphors-we-live-... Norvig's review discussing the book in the context of AI: https://norvig.com/mwlb.html https://norvig.com/mwlb.html
    • dingaling 1y ago
      [flagged]
      • ash_091 1y ago
        I spent a solid ten minutes researching this and couldn't find any suggestion that there's any problem with the title. Could you explain how it's ungrammatical?
        • cgh 1y ago
          There’s an outdated rule in English that states you shouldn’t end a sentence with a preposition. It dates back to a time when writers applied Latin’s grammatical rules to English. It’s mostly ignored now.
          • tomsmeding 1y ago
            But... it's a title, not a sentence. Many book titles are even a single word, which is even less a sentence. Why would a grammatical convention for sentences apply to book titles?
            • 1y ago
  • blargey 1y ago
    Are you feeling down, or are things looking up for you? Do you have people to look up to, or do you spend more time looking down on others? Are you on top of the world, or working your way up from the bottom? Etc, etc. It's suffused throughout our language, and not just this one language, either.
    • t-3 1y ago
      It's wrong in any case. The center is the most important part.
      • blauditore 1y ago
        Are you African by any chance?
        • t-3 1y ago
          Nope just an American old enough to remember real physical paper maps. You don't put the most important part on the edge. (I believe the Chinese also use "central" to describe the leader or foremost member of a group though. It's fascinating to think about how language might unconsciously influence behavior)
      • bandie91 1y ago
        there is no concept of "center" in the up-down paradigm discussed here. there IS center in other directionality-related abstractions however. like the center of the city, or the axis of the wheel, a centerpiece of an artwork. but the center-perimeter paradigm is very similar to the up-down one. if you want to put those 2 together you will get the vision of the mountain of which center is on the top, and its perimeter is at the bottom.
    • themaninthedark 1y ago
      It's up in the air, I could be High as a kite!
    • Leszek 1y ago
      Are you down for looking for counterexamples? Do you want to get to the bottom of why people cherry pick examples for their argument? Is this what you want to base your argument on, or should it be grounded in a more complete linguistic analysis?
  • MangoToupe 1y ago
    Out of curiosity, why do you think humanity tends to read from top down? We do have inherent bias living in a world with gravity. Though such bias may be subtle, and any attempts to evince deep meaning futile, it is nevertheless present.
    • vladms 1y ago
      I think might have more to do with the ink getting wiped/mangled when the first books were written. Even today, if I would be to fill a page bottom to up while writing with an ink pen, I would probably make some mess of the text already written. Same reason for writing left to right probably (given someone that writes with the right, but that seems to be more common).
      • MangoToupe 1y ago
        Perhaps! Then why do any societies write right to left?
        • vladms 1y ago
          I don't know the distribution of people using left or right across the world and how it is determined. It might be even close to 50% everywhere in early infancy, but once one "main direction" emerged at society level (by luck - like there were 4 people writing in that direction versus 2 in the other), maybe everybody is "pushed" in that direction. Anyhow it's a matter of trade-offs and each society ended up with different ones - I mean direction I find least controversial, think of Chinese and Ancient Egyptian scripts that are logographic - why did they end up with that? We can also analyze if some convention makes sense or not and why, even if the initial decision was taken for the "wrong" (or some irrational) reasons (ex: the village priest heard a voice).
  • deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  • seanmcdirmid 1y ago
    There is the term "global south", but 90% of the poor countries that are considered part of the global south are actually north of the equator. Its only really western Europe that is abnormally north to give such a skewed perspective.
• uniposterz 1y ago
  Is there a way to purchase this map for printing so Robert Simmon gets compensated?
  • cronelius 1y ago
    I mean you could just Venmo him
  • QQQQQQQQQQQQQM 1y ago
    Recently I had been looking for a specific map of a local trail system and found a map store near me that might have it, and had seen this exact map in the store. Crazy to see it here a couple days later! I believe you should be able to get it shipped wherever. https://www.mapcenter.com/store/p/upside-down-world-by-robert-simmon https://www.mapcenter.com/store/p/upside-down-world-by-rober...
  • soanvig 1y ago
    Print regular map in a design you like and hang it upside down. It's literally that. Or if you want to be strict you can use "flip" function in image editing tool. You can compensate me for saving your money
    • InitialLastName 1y ago
      To be fair, it's nice to have the typography rearranged to work upside down.
  • triceratops 1y ago
    The Wire has you covered: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3hD9ZbguIg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3hD9ZbguIg
• skellington 1y ago
  The weirdest thing about this to me is I was just thinking about the arbitrariness of current North being up the other day and then this article pops up here. They're reading our freaking brains!
  • quuxplusone 1y ago
    Reading the "Divine Comedy" led me to a realization (or at least a shower thought) the other day: It makes perfect sense for someone living in the northern hemisphere to think of "north" as "up." Why? Because when you look up, you see the stars, all rotating around a fixed point at the very top of the heavens. (In our current epoch, this fixed point is close to the star Polaris.) If you journey on foot in the direction of this fixed, highest point — toward Polaris — you'll find that you are traveling due north. So the conventional association between Upward and Northward is very much grounded in physical reality (for dwellers in the northern hemisphere).
    • axiolite 1y ago
      I doubt that is a thought on anyone's mind... I find people orient themselves by the direction their house / street faces, to a lesser extent the position of the sun, and north at the top is a completely arbitrary thing imposed on us. As evidence, see GPS navigation, which shows "forward" at the top.
      • bojan 1y ago
        Agree. It's also often that Upwards has a literal meaning, where the Upper place is literally geographically higher than the Lower place. Think of Lower Saxony, which is in the northern part of Germany, for example.
• rdtsc 1y ago
  This is a great map, they should show it alongside the typical one when teaching geography. I'll show this to my kids later, see what they think and ask them to find some countries on it. A similar change of perspective "trick" is knowing that when we look up at the stars, it's not really "up", it can be "down", too. Imagine being suspended head down, feet stuck to the ground looking at the space below, with billions of light years worth of almost nothing out there. A bit terrifying, I suppose, so maybe don't think too much about it :-)
  • eckmLJE 1y ago
    "The enemy's gate is down"!
  • disillusioned 1y ago
    In practical terms, though, 90% of the world's population lives in the northern hemisphere and the northern hemisphere contains ~65% of the earth's land mass, so it's not entirely without merit that we orient the map that way.
• rivetfasten 1y ago
  The West Wing has such a good clip about this: https://youtu.be/vVX-PrBRtTY?si=05KQjltJ8fVsqMDw https://youtu.be/vVX-PrBRtTY?si=05KQjltJ8fVsqMDw
  • gundmc 1y ago
    One of my favorite episodes! This immediately came to mind. I was due for a rewatch, thanks for linking.
  • jzb 1y ago
    Came here to see if anyone recommended that clip. I watched it just last night, it never fails to crack me up, especially CJ's reaction. "You can't do that!" "Why not?" "Because it's freaking me out!" Effective scene, too -- I've thought a bit differently about maps and some other things ever since, things that might not have ever occurred to me before. It's not a bad idea to expose people to different map projections / configurations to shake up their view of the world.
  • will4274 1y ago
    I think the West Wing clip highlights how out of date the thinking in the article is. When this clip was filmed, turn by turn navigation didn't exist yet. If the average person saw a map, it had north at the top. By contrast, these days, if I see a map, the direction I'm currently going is normally up. I don't find it freaky for maps to be oriented with north down because I see a map like that every time I drive south in my car.
• jordigh 1y ago
  Thought of this old Mafalda strip, haha. https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.geografiainfinita.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2020%2F12%2Fmafalda.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=8c64c51b997957cefbdbec1b43db4f1e5b7329a528be828276ebe5e006ce6648 https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2F...
  • latexr 1y ago
    Translation: Panel 1: But Libertad¹, you’re hanging it upside down. Panel 2: Upside down in relation to what? Earth is in space, and space has neither up nor down. Panel 3: Saying the northern hemisphere is up is a psychological trick from those at the top, so that those who believe we are below continue to believe we are at the bottom. And the worst part is that if we keep believing we’re below, we’ll continue to be. But starting today, that’s over! Panel 4, top: Where were you, Mafalda? Panel 4, bottom: I don’t know, but something just came to an end. ¹ It’s her name: https://mafalda.fandom.com/es/wiki/Libertad https://mafalda.fandom.com/es/wiki/Libertad
• loloquwowndueo 1y ago
  Fun fact: if you rotate a regular map (north on top) counterclockwise, you’ll notice the American continent looks like a duck. Even more fun fact: once you’ve seen this, you cannot unsee it. It’s a duck.
  • Martin_Silenus 1y ago
    Much like this: https://i2.wp.com/boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Donalds.jpg https://i2.wp.com/boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/...
  • accoil 1y ago
    It's also a rabbit :)
• shadowgovt 1y ago
  Is this map projection making Russia look small an artifact of the projection (i.e. we expand the land in the north more than the south in this projection in general) or an optical illusion? Russia looks small flipped on its head and I can't quite figure out why.
  • throw-the-towel 1y ago
    I don't think Russia looks small on this map, it's just not as blown-out as on Mercator maps. When I was growing up in Russia, the map I had in my room was a similar projection -- except with the North up, of course -- and Russia was about the same size on it.
    • zahlman 1y ago
      > I don't think Russia looks small on this map, it's just not as blown-out as on Mercator maps. I think that GP is accustomed to Mercator maps and is thus more surprised by it. (I'm not really sure why this is a thing. My elementary school classrooms in the late 80s showed a variety of projections, and globes.)
  • zahlman 1y ago
    > (i.e. we expand the land in the north more than the south Yes. This is a consequence of the fact that the "land in the north" is, on average, further north (of the Equator) than the "land in the south" is south (of the Equator). The southernmost point on the South American mainland, per Wikipedia, is Cape Froward, Chile, at about 54°S. For perspective, some cities between 53°N and 54°N include Edmonton, Alberta, Canada; Hamburg, Germany; and Dublin, Ireland. Similarly, the capital of New Zealand is about in line with the capital of Albania, and the capital of South Africa is about in line with the capital of Qatar.
  • Nition 1y ago
    It does seem to look visually less squished if I flip the image over, so beyond the projection, I would also say yes to optical illusion to some extent: https://i.imgur.com/JPIuvYl.jpeg https://i.imgur.com/JPIuvYl.jpeg
• jauntywundrkind 1y ago
  I know the planet has poles, but it surprises me somehow that basically every map I've ever seen respects the poles as top bottom. The earth is a sphere and we could just as well pick any pode/anti-pode we want when drawing.
  • pge 1y ago
    For navigation, having the poles at top and bottom is really the only way to do it. Lining up positions of constant noon sun angle along a horizontal line (i.e. latitude line) makes the paper map correspond nicely to the navigational information available.
• socrateslopes 1y ago
  [dead]
• emulatedmedia 1y ago
  As someone from the Southern Hemisphere, the article's point falls flat. There's more land area in the top so it makes it easier to look at it
  • boringg 1y ago
    You lose a lot of the details of the northern hemisphere when its compressed downwards in that map.
    • hughes 1y ago
      That seems to be due to the pseudocylindrical projection, not the rotation of the map.
  • sltkr 1y ago
    Not just land area; ~90% of the world population lives on the northern hemisphere, so it's more important in that sense, political and historical considerations aside.
• therealmarv 1y ago
  Somebody know where to get a higher resolution of that map?
• buzzy_hacker 1y ago
  I was taught in high school that during the Cold War, there were maps with the US centered and USSR divided on either side to imply American unity in the face of opposition. Example: https://ebay.us/m/tN1UfJ https://ebay.us/m/tN1UfJ
  • crazygringo 1y ago
    The maps were common, but there was nothing anti-USSR about them, and they go way back before the Cold War. It's long been practice for maps to be centered on the country/continent they're produced in. American world maps centered on the Americas, British world maps centered on Greenwich, Chinese world maps centered on East Asia. These days we've mostly standardized on the more "neutral" choice of having the edges in the middle of the Pacific because that minimizes the land getting split up, but there are also Asian maps that split in the middle of the Atlantic, since Greenland's population is low.
  • olalonde 1y ago
    In China, world maps have China more centered with America to the right. Some pics I took recently: https://gist.github.com/olalonde/d293e54c46143c3dd905da4c0ebc4703 https://gist.github.com/olalonde/d293e54c46143c3dd905da4c0eb...
• zenmac 1y ago
  Wow look at Australia upside down it looks strikingly resembles USA!
  • shirro 1y ago
    It is almost the same area if you exclude Alaska but considerably closer to the equator. Cat-dog disappears when shown the right way up so I think the Europeans were right to draw their maps upside down.
• sivers 1y ago
  It's also a wonderful metaphor for how the opposite can also be true. Japanese addresses that name the blocks, not the streets: https://sive.rs/jadr https://sive.rs/jadr West African music that uses the "1" as the end of the phrase instead of the start: https://sive.rs/fela https://sive.rs/fela “Whatever you can rightly say about India, the opposite is also true”, Joan Robinson https://www.ted.com/talks/derek_sivers_weird_or_just_different https://www.ted.com/talks/derek_sivers_weird_or_just_differe...
  • throw-the-towel 1y ago
    Also in the address department: Europe numbers houses roughly sequentially along the whole street, while the Americas (generally) assign house numbers based on the distance to the beginning of the block. And BTW, in the old towns of Sweden and Finland blocks do have names!
    • bluGill 1y ago
      Sometimes. I know of places in america where numbers are sequential. I know of other places where they a sequential but increase by five.
      • throw-the-towel 1y ago
        Could you share some examples please? I'm not doubting you, just want to look at some maps.
        • bluGill 1y ago
          I don't know how to do this... I also don't remember where anymore.
      • dylan604 1y ago
        I haven't seen the increase by five, but by twos when the odds/evens are separated across the street from each other. 101's next door neighbor is 103 while 102 is across the street next door to 104.
• xnx 1y ago
  90% of the world's population lives in the northern hemisphere[1]. It would be a deliberately weird design choice to make a globe (which is almost always viewed from above) with the northern hemisphere n bottom. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Hemisphere https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Hemisphere
  • dataflow 1y ago
    Weirdness isn't the issue. It would be literally much harder to see the bottom side (which is where most cities and humans are located, as you mention) unless you make the globes easy enough to lift, or tall enough to go above most people's heads. I fail to see how that would be better UI.
• euroderf 1y ago
  The traditional (folk? premodern?) Finnish view of the world places Finland at the bottom.
• mikebannister 1y ago
  My uncle had a south-up map of the US on his wall when I was growing up. I always thought it was funny and slightly profound.
• yongjik 1y ago
  Another fun arbitrary thing is which meridian you decide to cut, because the earth is round. If you do an image search for, say, "world atlas," you'll see all the maps have cut the Pacific in half, so the West Pacific is at the right edge and the East Pacific is at the left edge of the map. Now, if you search for, say, "세계전도", then you'll see that most maps have cut the Atlantic in half, because otherwise kids (for whom those atlases are intended) would see their own hometown shoved all the way to the end of the map.
  • zokier 1y ago
    While technically choice of prime meridian is arbitrary, there is a particular cartographic reason to prefer so called Florence meridian, as it minimizes interruption of land masses. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence_meridian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence_meridian
• Beijinger 1y ago
  A similar map was published by the Brazilian government: https://www.gmexconsulting.com/cms/the-world-from-a-brazilian-perspective-and-a-market-for-your-with-over-200-million-customers/ https://www.gmexconsulting.com/cms/the-world-from-a-brazilia...
• daedrdev 1y ago
  This map feels confusing because Canada, Russia, Greenland and antarctica are the same color, I feel like they should not be the same and antarctica should not be a country color
  • timeon 1y ago
    Some countries do not even have same color for whole area in that map.
• legitster 1y ago
  Also, I was quite old by the time I learned that "Oriental" literally just means "direction of the sunrise". So to "orient" would specifically mean looking East. Before compasses all indicated North, "the North" was associated with cold and evil, the south was associated with warmth and prosperity, and the East was considered neutral when establishing bearings.
  • schoen 1y ago
    > Also, I was quite old by the time I learned that "Oriental" literally just means "direction of the sunrise". Even more literally "of the rising" ("occidental" meaning "of the falling"). The sun is of course implied here, but the Latin verbs orior and occido more generally indicate rising and falling motions of anyone and anything.
    • Affric 1y ago
      Interestingly “meridional” could mean south in some languages because it was towards the equator… which is funny when it’s used south of the equator.
      • schoen 1y ago
        So again, even more literally, it's "of the midday, of the noon", so "toward the noon, noonwards". And in the northern hemisphere, the noon happens in the direction of the equator, so southward.
        • Affric 1y ago
          Cheers!
  • marcosdumay 1y ago
    > "the North" was associated with cold and evil, the south was associated with warmth and prosperity In Europe. And probably even only far from the Mediterranean.
• rilindo 1y ago
  I can see Marley and Paradis!
• deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
• numpad0 1y ago
  My Kerbal brained thinking: shouldn't it be east up with KSP at center?
• patternMachine 1y ago
  The moralizing that always accompanies (not) upside down maps is so tedious. It's a genuinely interesting example of how something can look so wrong and yet not be wrong at all. To try to extend that "wrong" feeling to some kind of moral failure on the viewers part is just silly. You (or society) are not a bad or prejudiced person for thinking this way, it's just that nearly all maps produced have chosen a different arbitrary orientation.
  • a3w 1y ago
    For clarity, you cannot call north up: North is not up. That would make left west. When standing in front of a building, with map in hand, and asking people to go start going to the street in the south, then left, I mean left in direction of travel, which is east. Not left in direction of map conventions, which for people who cannot read a compass is probably west.
    • bobbylarrybobby 1y ago
      North being up doesn't make left west because left is relative to front, not up, and front can easily change directions whereas up cannot (at least not relative to the direction of gravity). It happens that when you're looking at a map mounted on a wall with north up, west is left, but if you were to turn 90° left yourself, then west would be straight (front). This is all consistent with north being up.
      • matrss 1y ago
        But if you define "up" as the direction opposite to where gravity pulls things (which very much makes sense) then there is no possible situation in which north being up would be correct either. A compass needle never points up. You are mounting a map of something horizontal onto a vertical surface, it is just as correct - or depending on the alignment of the wall arguably even more correct - to put east up. You can only ever get at most two directions correct, after all.
        • ndriscoll 1y ago
• globular-toast 1y ago
  Arguments about map projections are tiring. If you want to understand the whole planet, use a globe. Most people use maps via screens these days and there is no problem with projection or orientation. Most apps will let you orient the map how you like or according to your current bearing etc. and use a local projection. Can't we just stop using these whole world projections completely?
• cyberlimerence 1y ago
  I love stuff like this. I encourage everyone to check out 'Méditerranée Sans Frontières' map. [1][2] [1] http://mediterraneesansfrontieres.org/babel4.html http://mediterraneesansfrontieres.org/babel4.html [2] https://amroali.com/2020/12/what-a-sideway-map-of-the-mediterranean-reveals/ https://amroali.com/2020/12/what-a-sideway-map-of-the-medite...
  • gausswho 1y ago
    Intriguing. I wonder if an Arabic reader looks more prominently at the right side (Europe), the way an English speaker looks more prominently at the left side (Africa). Would be interesting to see a world map designed with latitude vertically instead. If the top were the Pacific, your eyes would first appraise East Asia. If the top were the Atlantic, North America.
• interroboink 1y ago
  Obligatory "there's an xkcd for everything": https://xkcd.com/1500/ https://xkcd.com/1500/ (:
• dbl000 1y ago
  Relatedly there's a Map Men video on why north is up. [0] I don't buy the whole top is 'good' and lower is 'bad'. I think the bias is just a lot of the groups that made maps were located north(ish) and traveling roughly southward which made it a convenient orientation, especially during the age of sail. [0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B14Gtm2Z_70 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B14Gtm2Z_70
  • xp84 1y ago
    And looking at the map, it would be hard for those map makers not to be north(ish) since the South is mostly ocean. Not too many civilizations that have sprung up in the ocean.
  • Tarq0n 1y ago
    The discomfort visible in many commenter's reactions is telling, even if it isn't a good vs bad dichotomy. The fact of the matter is that any data visualization brings with it some advantages and drawbacks. This can be projection, orientation or centering related. Acknowledging these drawbacks can be useful, and so is trying out alternative representations of the data every so often. One thing I think can be acknowledged is that the poor job traditional maps do of representing Africa has affected policy towards countries in the continent for the worse. For instance misguided infrastructure projects.
• gaborcselle 1y ago
  This article feels AI-generated
• deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
• paxys 1y ago
  90% of the world's population and 68% of the land mass being in the northen hemisphere is probably a good enough reason to put north up top on a map.
  • the-grump 1y ago
    Disagree completely. Your map should be bottom-heavy for stability.
    • shermantanktop 1y ago
      It's true, that's how Weebles wobble but they don't fall down.
    • mckeed 1y ago
      Also if the map is flat on a table, more stuff is closer to you.
      • kqr 1y ago
        But if you pin it to a wall, it's easier to reach the top pins with the most earthful bits at face height if the earthful bits are at the top.
    • amiga386 1y ago
      No no no. We should put Asia at the top, Europe bottom left, Africa bottom right. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T_and_O_map https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T_and_O_map
      • benrutter 1y ago
        You're all fools! We should put the north pole in the center so that Antartica makes a pretty frame around the rest of the world!
      • deltarholamda 1y ago
        We called it the Orient because at one time to orient yourself meant to face east towards the rising Sun. So maps with east at the top make sense.
• alberth 1y ago
  Some trivia: the North Pole is actually the magnetic south pole. Out of convention we call it the “North Pole” because on a compass the north magnet is point toward its attract magnetic south. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_magnetic_pole https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_magnetic_pole
  • grues-dinner 1y ago
    I think in this case the concept of North came first and which end of a magnet points that way came second. Compasses are old, but not as old as the sunrise/set, which are (presumably) the original vaguely universal directions and define all four cardinal directions.
• fanatic2pope 1y ago
  I bought a similar map from a shop in Australia and thought it was a really cool way to look at things from a different perspective. Perhaps un-surprisingly, it has Australa front and centre. https://hemamaps.com/products/upside-down-world-in-envelope-folded-map https://hemamaps.com/products/upside-down-world-in-envelope-...
  • jerf 1y ago
    I think rather than berating people for allegedly stodgy thinking that a better approach is just that everyone has an equal moral right to produce a map in which they are in the position of prominence, and since everyone can do that equally, nobody should be running around complaining about any particular orientation.
• jandrewrogers 1y ago
  Putting the north at the top was an artifact of the need to select a standard orientation when the printing press enabled mass production of maps. It was going to be north or south, thanks to the widespread existence of the magnetic compass at the time, and the printing press was invented by people in the north.
  • deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  • ZeroGravitas 1y ago
    The word "orientation" literally means pointing towards the rising sun i.e. East.
  • nemomarx 1y ago
    What did maps from China look like around then? I assume they'd center their continent somehow
    • xandrius 1y ago
      The name of China in Chinese is middle/central kindgom and there are maps with different areas being at the centre, so yep.
    • olalonde 1y ago
      They still do. Took those pictures a few days ago in China: https://gist.github.com/olalonde/d293e54c46143c3dd905da4c0ebc4703 https://gist.github.com/olalonde/d293e54c46143c3dd905da4c0eb...
      • kccqzy 1y ago
        That's a Pacific-centered map not a China-centered map. You can buy these in the U.S. too; I'm sure the people of Hawaii would prefer these. https://www.natgeomaps.com/re-world-classic-pacific-centered https://www.natgeomaps.com/re-world-classic-pacific-centered or https://www.natgeomaps.com/re-world-executive-pacific-centered https://www.natgeomaps.com/re-world-executive-pacific-center...
• 0xWTF 1y ago
  Anyone who has downloaded raw data from an unencrypted weather satellite can appreciate how crazy familiar territory can look when a bit of rotation and skew is applied. Imagine a satellite over the Southern Ocean looking southeast across Madagascar where North is in the lower right corner of the image and the satellite is only 5 degrees above the horizon.
• GolfPopper 1y ago
  I like alternative maps including this one, but Robinson was an unfortunate choice for a map where Antarctica is so prominent.
• hintbits 1y ago
  It would be great if that map respected internationally accepted borders and attributed Crimea to Ukraine.
• red_hare 1y ago
  Well if we're all just sharing our favorite world map projections: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dymaxion_map https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dymaxion_map
  • TJTorola 1y ago
    Butterfly for me: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterman_butterfly_projection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterman_butterfly_projection
• 1970-01-01 1y ago
  There's a Map Men video on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B14Gtm2Z_70 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B14Gtm2Z_70
• a3w 1y ago
  North is not up. That would make left west. When standing in front of a building, with map in hand, and asking people to go start going to the street in the south, then left, I mean left, which is east. In school, everyone learns that north is not up, and south is not down. Only us dumb grown-ups use that. ALL. THE. TIME. ALL. OF. THEM.
• jmkd 1y ago
  Maps should have east at the top for a few reasons: 1. The sun (and moon and planets and many stars) rises in the east. 2. The east represents what is to come. This manifests in natural (day / night cycles) and cultural (timezones / dateline) aspects. 3. Orienting a map to such an easy to locate (day or night) direction requires no compass or other technology. 4. Orienting a map with such an impactful direction at the top creates a strong literal connection to the territory it represents, rather than to a part-abstracted direction that must be identified and agreed.
  • jama211 1y ago
    The sun doesn’t rise directly in the east though unless you live exactly on the equator, and it rises a different amount off of east every day. However, at noon, the sun is always either due north or due south depending on what hemisphere you’re in, so number 3 is quite arguable. Also the North Star being a thing is quite influential.
    • jmkd 1y ago
      It does on both equinoxes, which along with the solstices have been universally marked days in every civilization. Consider those days as reliable calibrations for any kind of wayfinding or navigation system in ancient times. Aztecs, Mayans and Incans noted the sunrise position every day of the year in order to plan agricultural (and cultural) activity.
      • jama211 1y ago
        Sure, but you can find north/south at noon _every day_. I don’t actually have a strong opinion either way, but I think it’s true that you can find arbitrary explanations for anything you lie here. At the end of the day we just gotta pick a standard and go with it and we have done.
  • paxys 1y ago
    From our perspective the sun doesn't travel top to bottom, so why orient the map that way?
• grahar64 1y ago
  This is the correct map, but New Zealand should be in the center as we are middle earth
  • dylan604 1y ago
    if only the axis was in the middle of middle earth would I agree
  • BitwiseFool 1y ago
    Imperial China thought they were the Middle Kingdom, but that title belongs to New Zealand.
• jcmontx 1y ago
  Honorary mention to one of the officials maps of Argentina https://www.ign.gob.ar/gallery-app/mapas-escolares-202307/medium/ARG%20BICO%20INVERTIDO%20COPLA%20A4%202021.jpg https://www.ign.gob.ar/gallery-app/mapas-escolares-202307/me...
  • phyzix5761 1y ago
    Wow this is so cool! Thanks for sharing.
  • BaardFigur 1y ago
    Casually claiming a bunch of British territories
    • kulahan 1y ago
      Easy come easy go
    • pac0 1y ago
      Islas Malvinas are Argentinian.
      • xanderlewis 1y ago
        [says who?]
      • thelibrarian 1y ago
        Argentina has tried to prove this both by legal means and by force, and has conclusively failed at both, so I think it's well past time to give up.
      • kspacewalk2 1y ago
        Not in these three fairly important ways: actual control, the wishes of the people who actually live there, de jure recognition by most countries. Otherwise, sure, totally and wholly Argentinian.
        • 1y ago
• writebetterc 1y ago
  There are old Arabic maps which have south at the top.
  • AnotherGoodName 1y ago
    Ancient Egypt too. It was more natural for the Nile to run 'downwards'. This is also why upper Egypt is South and lower Egypt is North.
• Martin_Silenus 1y ago
  Yeah, sure, I've heard that before... master/slave, black/white lists... and now, north/south. I wonder what they'll come up with now to explain reading from left to right (don't even think about the majority of right-handed writers, that would ruin the fun). ".snoitnevnoc fo yticilpmis eht dnihneb noitnetni neddih a eb ot dnuob si erehT"
  • nemomarx 1y ago
    I mean several languages are right to left? I'd be interested to see if handedness in those countries is different.
    • Martin_Silenus 1y ago
      > I mean several languages are right to left? So? Anyway, handedness bias is a humanity thing. You're not interested to see if they don't care about majority, are you? But let's be honest: it's just other cultures to me. I don't even think WE often care about majority either.
      • nemomarx 1y ago
        I'm wondering if they have the same handedness for writing and for other tasks or not, if practice writing rtl makes them on average more ambidextrous on average etc. Does it have any cultural impacts like how we had the "sinister" thing in English?
        • Martin_Silenus 1y ago
          There is nothing cultural about an individual's ability to write with their right hand. Studies have been conducted on this subject: it is a physiological/neurological factor (which also applies to other parts of the human body). I know this because, well... I'm a left-handed writer and it interested me at one point (strangely enough, I find it very difficult to throw something with my left hand; and I'm right-handed at tennis, and I kick with my left foot in soccer). Culturally, there has been pressure in the past to use the right hand for writing. But this has been considered harsh for decades and is now seen as an archaic practice.
• bee_rider 1y ago
  I get the philosophical idea of challenging our default assumptions and remember people who are’t right in the middle of our conventional map. Good thing to do, sure. But, the fact that Africa and South America are pointy on their southern sides makes these kind of maps look awkward and bad IMO. It is like adjusting a paragraph so that the extra white space is in the first, instead of the last, line. Or putting the shortest line of a multi line function definition at the top, instead of the bottom. We’ve all seen ragged-right and ragged-left typesetting, but never ragged-top.
  • nemomarx 1y ago
    Yeah I'm not sure why taking the same projection and mirroring it does anything. Surely you'd want a different style of map entirely for this kind of project? Africa could be much larger in it for instance
• marktani 1y ago
  In Japan, physical maps like in parks and city information booths are oriented to be aligned with the actual geography. Meaning, north on the map points to actual north. Made me think of how much more accurate the end to end process of putting up that map has to be vs. maps oriented by "north is up". Just imagine the map needs to be moved by 10m and rotated around for some last minute restructuring of the park before finalizing the project. Anyway, it was fun to read these maps and think about how many assumptions we carry around that are shaped by objects around us we use daily.
  • bombcar 1y ago
    This is similar to the modern car GPS question → do you always have the little arrow pointing up in the middle and the map rotates, or is the map still and the car rotates?
    • marktani 1y ago
      True! When I started driving, I was using the "north is always up" setting as it helped me get a better understanding of where I was in the city. Somehow this was more fun. At some point I switched to the more common setting (I assume) of having the map rotate.
      • deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
      • OptionOfT 1y ago
        I still have my map as going in the direction I'm going. Being from Europe wind directions don't matter. The roads don't care. Then the 3d view came out, and that got my preference, and I'm always hoping one day the clouds will represent actual weather. Anyway, the first car I got when moving to the USA got one of those direction things in the mirror, and I actually started to force myself to think in those terms. It removes a lot of ambiguity when explaining things, for example: you then turn left is more ambiguous than you then turn West.
      • kunley 1y ago
• zokier 1y ago
  Tbh east on top would in some ways be more interesting because map projections usually are symmetrical across the equator but are not rotationally symmetrical. So east up map would have potentially different shapes of land masses, while south up map has exact same shapes as north up.
• dzuc 1y ago
  Here's a map I put together https://northerngesture.com https://northerngesture.com
  • dzuc 1y ago
    > The notion that north should always be up and east at the right was established by the Egyptian astronomer Ptolemy (90-168 AD). "Perhaps this was because the better-known places in his world were in the northern hemisphere, and on a flat map these were most convenient for study if they were in the upper right-hand corner," historian Daniel Boorstin opines. Mapmakers haven't always followed Ptolemy; during the Middle Ages, Boorstin notes, maps often had east on top--whence the expression "to orient."
    • pyuser583 1y ago
      Strange. “Upper Egypt” is the southern part of Egypt and “Lower Egypt” is the northern part. The source of the Nile (to the south of Egypt) was the key reference point to ancient Egyptians. I searched, and Ptolemy was a Greek who lived in Egypt, not an ethnic Egyptian.
      • chatmasta 1y ago
        The first time I realized the Nile flowed from South to North, I thought someone was pranking me. It just felt fundamentally wrong. That’s probably because when you look at a globe, the Nile seems like it should be dripping downward…
        • YurgenJurgensen 1y ago
          But the Mediterranean is right there. Did you think the Mediterranean drains into some sinkhole in the middle of Africa?
          • chatmasta 1y ago
            Well I was about eleven years old, so I’m not sure I’d even heard of the Mediterranean by then.
• jjk166 1y ago
  If we start using south-side-up maps, how are fantasy writers supposed to come up with shapes for their fictional continents?
• SequoiaHope 1y ago
  Disappointed there was no discussion of maps where east or west are up.
• nitwit005 1y ago
  > Psychologically, we tend to view things nearer the top as ‘good’ and those lower as ‘bad.’ Yea, sure. That's why we all try to vacation in a "tropical paradise", which tend to be in the middle of the map. People are dumb, really dumb even, but even a two year old is going to realize vertical map position doesn't equate to "good".
• seanalltogether 1y ago
  Sundials also point northly throughout the day if you're in the northern hemisphere, another reason that North can be interpreted as "up"
• RangerScience 1y ago
  Huh. I wonder if part of this is that, when you make a globe, you’ll pretty much always look “down” on it. And as another poster said, most of the land (and thus peoples and nations) are in the north. So it makes sense it’d end up on top?
• HPsquared 1y ago
  Really, it should be in portrait mode to suit phone screens. Vertical scrolling spins the globe.
• f59b3743 1y ago
  [flagged]
  • kccqzy 1y ago
    Of course. Open Google Maps on your phone. Use two fingers to rotate. (Apple Maps won't work here because it uses a globe.)
  • hollerith 1y ago
    >I would not have known that one could have oriented a map with a different direction at the top had a blog post not been written about it. I think it is more likely you are being sarcastic or trolling than that you really would not have known. But I am not sure. (I don't know anything about you but this one comment.)
• pb060 1y ago
  To me it just looks like a world map rotated by 180 degrees. Not strange or disorienting.
• TacticalCoder 1y ago
  [dead]
• raffraffraff 1y ago
  Since it's a globe you could also have North on the left and with on the right. Right?
  • jes5199 1y ago
    yeah but then you have to start imagining the earth orbiting the sun by climbing over and under it each year
  • deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
• tomcam 1y ago
  Though some view me as a stodgy, patriotic American "right-winger" I feel this country needs to make actual north orientation great again and also adopt the goddamn metric system. FLIP THE MAP
• perrygeo 1y ago
  My favorite is the Dymaxion projection created by Bucky Fuller. It shows all seven continents as one roughly contiguous chain of islands from Australia to Antarctica, surrounded by a giant ocean. It's no more or less correct than "north up" projections. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/53/Dymaxion_projection.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/53/Dymaxion...
  • gwbas1c 1y ago
    The thing that I like about that projection is that it shows just how close North America and Russia really are.
    • zokier 1y ago
      Eyeballing distances is probably my biggest problem with dymaxion map, it is pretty difficult to do. Admittedly it is problem on many projections to some degree, but dymaxion is especially tricky
  • kccqzy 1y ago
    In college I wanted to buy a large printed Dymaxion map of the world to put in my dorm, as opposed to the usual movie posters. I could not find any place selling such a print.
    • JdeBP 1y ago
      Nowadays, people sell poster-size Dymaxion maps on Etsy. One of the good ways in which the world has changed, I think.
• mproud 1y ago
  Why do the maps have to look bulbous horizontally?
• jumploops 1y ago
  "North" is better correlated with the direction of travel that our planet/solar system is moving within[0] Given the context in our movement compared to the milky way, maybe it's better to have East/West for top/bottom, with the poles on each edge of the map ;) [1] Or better yet, let's make the top of the map Galactic North, instead of Celestial North :P [0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jHsq36_NTU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jHsq36_NTU [1]https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/orientation-of-the-earth-sun-and-solar-system-in-the-milky-way.888643/ https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/orientation-of-the-ear...
• techas 1y ago
  Beautiful Torres García painting: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Am%C3%A9rica_Invertida https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Am%C3%A9rica_Invertida
• zamadatix 1y ago
  I have been rewatching Stargate SG-1 recently and noticed in S07E08 "Space Race" the surface of the planet (Hebridan) clearly had India and the Arabian Peninsula in it https://i.imgur.com/ocNHrpi.png https://i.imgur.com/ocNHrpi.png but nearly upside down. I wonder how many times I missed similar things just because the perspective was different than I'm used to.
• chatmasta 1y ago
  My sixth grade teacher had this map pinned to the wall. I’ll never know if it really had a meaningful influence on my outlook, but I think it probably did. Then again my opinions evolved to be opposite many of hers, so maybe it had some unintentional side effects.
• spuz 1y ago
  My Australian Geography teacher (in the UK) had an upside-down map and anti-clockwise clock on the wall and told us that was how all maps and clocks were in Australia. We might not have been convinced, but it certainly gave a different perspective on the way things are.
• folgoris 1y ago
  The article doesn't even mention stars and here I only see a few comments mentioning "Polaris", "pole star" or "North star" but I think Polaris is the main reason. Furthermore, because it was seen up and not down, the cartographers instinctively placed north at the top.
• Affric 1y ago
  I love maps that are in non standard orientations. South up as a default I think is a little boring once you’ve seen it but thinking wider orienting a map to how it would best display whay you’re mapping (rather than defaulting North/South) is a must in my mind.
• nesk_ 1y ago
  I definitely recommend you to read A History of the World in 12 Maps by Jerry Broton. It's very interesting and you learn a lot about our world and its history.
• CoolGuySteve 1y ago
  East should be at the top so you can imagine the sun moving from top to bottom to visualize time zone offsets. Right now the sun goes from right to left which is the opposite of how we read most languages.
• HocusLocus 1y ago
  SPLAT Antarctica bug spanning the whole windshield and people fuss about orientation? They're looking at nothing but guts!
• Legion 1y ago
  "Yeah but you can't do that" "Why not?" "Because it's freaking me out" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPaca-SrvEk&t=208s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPaca-SrvEk&t=208s
• sometimez 1y ago
  another reason why w -> e makes sense to me is that most cultures see progression as from left to right. in terms of timekeeping, west is in the "past" and east is in the "future", so it makes sense west would be on the left, and east would be on the right, and n up, s down as the result.
• Svoka 1y ago
  Whilst this map may be not upside down, it is just wrong - it has Crimean peninsula marked as russian, disregarding all existing border treaties and being valid in only one fascist kingdom.
• diego_moita 1y ago
  Fun fact: former Brazilian president Dilma Roussef took this map to show to Xi Jiping, her dearest friend at BRICS. Thing is, in China, any map that doesn't show Taiwan as being part of China is illegal. This map doesn't show that. Things didn't go as smooth as she expected.
• aidenn0 1y ago
  Splitting the east/west sides with the Atlantic instead of the Pacific can also be interesting.
• eichin 1y ago
  A south-up map article that doesn't mention the classic (pre-internet even) Theory of Continental Drip? (basically that you can overlay "teardrop" shapes on south america, africa, mexico, and a bunch of other places depending on how artistic you get about it; though there were apparently later attempts to tie it to actual plate tectonics, it was originally a simple visual pun...)
• shirro 1y ago
  The thing I resent most is the terms Global North and Global South. It seems like an offensive classification no matter which side you are placed. China is an incredibly rich, highly developed industrial economy with a history that goes back thousands of years with massive cultural influence. They are firmly in the northern hemisphere. They have high speed electric trains and their cities look like something out of Blade Runner. I live in a comparatively underdeveloped, de-industrialised Australia, way to the South where we get classified as part of the North because white people invaded 200 years ago? If we are ex-colonial doesn't that put us in the South? As much as I love New Zealand its very clear visiting that they suffer massive under investment compared even to Australia though at least they have an orbital launch capacity but then so does India which is in the South. Is it because we speak a European language. Why is Argentina, the country with nuclear technology that build our research/medical reactor in the South when we don't have that technology? It is completely arbitrary, political and divisive. It portrays countries like Australia and NZ as being in conflict with our neighbor when we have had really good relations with our neighbors. It puts China in with countries they have territorial disputes with. It puts Russia in with Ukraine. I don't get it.
  • idkfasayer 1y ago
    How about East - West? https://m.xkcd.com/503/ https://m.xkcd.com/503/
    • extraduder_ire 1y ago
      Strangely, most people "Orient" a map with the east on the right hand side and the Occident on the left hand side.
      • spragl 1y ago
        That is just equivalent to North pointing up. Many commenters have explained why that is the most prevalent. I mean, except that you could of course have the subterranean view of the World, with North point up, East to the left, and West to the right, if you so like... Confusion guaranteed!
• felipeerias 1y ago
  The main concern when making maps is not philosophical but practical. The usual orientation responds to the simple fact that two thirds of Earth’s land is in the Northern hemisphere. European and American maps place the Atlantic in the middle, because it minimises the distortions to those regions and makes them more visible. Asian maps put the Pacific in the middle for the same reason. Reading the article, I am reminded of the medieval maps that put Jerusalem in the center, with Asia at the top and the Mediterranean flowing down from it. A spiritual map. Perhaps what the article is describing is also a spiritual map in its own way. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T_and_O_map https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T_and_O_map
  • Attrecomet 1y ago
    >The usual orientation responds to the simple fact that two thirds of Earth’s land is in the Northern hemisphere. Nope, just convention from the places that held cultural hegemony when our current map-making conventions were established.
• thelibrarian 1y ago
  While the orientation is interesting, the coloring is very poor. With no key, it would seem that the colors are used to differentiate countries, but they have too many adjacent countries colored the same default beige. This makes Canada, Greenland and Iceland all appear to be the same country, likewise with Australia, New Zealand, and Papua New Guinea. Also Mexico and most of the Caribbean (except Haiti).
• marcus_holmes 1y ago
  Apparently we're due for a pole flip [0] pretty soon. If that happens, do we stick with putting North at the top and all maps look like this, or do we stick with keeping the maps the same way up and putting South at the top? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geomagnetic_reversal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geomagnetic_reversal
  • nomel 1y ago
    I suspect we will continue to do what we currently do: differentiate between magnetic north and "true" north, by applying a local correction, as is already required for navigation with a compass.
    • reverius42 1y ago
      A minor correction is quite different from literally flipping the poles.
      • Attrecomet 1y ago
        And entirely unimportant for our maps' orientations. Why would we even flip maps? They aren't oriented along the magnetic poles right now!
      • nomel 1y ago
        Depends on your definition of minor. As is, you cannot use magnetic north to navigate, alone, in the east and west of North America. It's 20 degrees off in Oregon, and nearly 40 in northern Alaska. This is something you quickly learn in boy scouts, by getting lost in the woods, if you live on the coast. But, considering it takes 1,000 to 10,000 years to flip, nobody involved in this will be surprised when they look at their compass. They'll have remembered their local correction from when they were children.
        • marcus_holmes 1y ago
          The Wiki article does mention that there are theories it could take way less than that, possible even a single lifetime.
• NoToP 1y ago
  On account of the earth spinning, and all the globally universal constants that derive from this fact, from the magnetic field to the sun rising in the East, at the very least an orientation which puts a cardinal direction on top was inevitable.
• _wire_ 1y ago
  If I say "It's all downhill from here" do you think things are going to go better or worse? Justify your perception.
• Jotalea 1y ago
  I actually like this map, because my country is on top of it.
• maxlin 1y ago
  Curious thought. What is even more interesting, is the map put sideways. I suppose this is slightly "more wrong" as the rotation of the earth can't be easily mapped here https://strategiccoffee.chriscfox.com/2020/09/What-if-your-map-is-wrong.html https://strategiccoffee.chriscfox.com/2020/09/What-if-your-m...
• leemelone 1y ago
  Yes it is. That map is upside down.
• taeric 1y ago
  Ok, the idea that "north is up" is potentially a consequential thing is somewhat fair. In that it is not just dismissable out of hand. That said, it is pretty silly. And asserting it is meaningful philosophically reeks of agenda pushing. It is also just going to be an outdated concern faster than makes sense. Most kids are growing up used to computer maps in navigation devices, and those, by far, default to "up" being "straight ahead." Because they can.
• dworks 1y ago
  People naturally make maps for their own needs and purposes. The article seems to think there's only one map but there's many. China has it's own version with itself in the center: https://studycli.org/chinese-culture/china-world-map/ https://studycli.org/chinese-culture/china-world-map/
• excalibur 1y ago
  This is like the most basic map ever. They literally just flipped it over. What's with all the imagined pearl clutching?
• femto 1y ago
  The cartographer just bought the tea towel on a trip to NZ? https://www.reddit.com/r/newzealand/comments/o3u6uo/ive_had_this_tea_towel_for_years_and_never_paid/ https://www.reddit.com/r/newzealand/comments/o3u6uo/ive_had_...
• nvader 1y ago
  I do want to provocatively point out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_drip https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_drip
• jillesvangurp 1y ago
  There's a practical reason for the map to be north facing. If you use a compass, the needle points north. So, if you then orient your self and your map facing the same direction, it's easy to figure out headings and bearings because they'll match what you see on the compass. Even in the southern hemisphere, compass needles still point north. So, orienting maps north seems like a pragmatic thing to do.
  • deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  • el_oni 1y ago
    They also point south. If you changed which end of the needle was painted red it would be just as useful for orienting to the south as existing compasses are for facing north
  • helsinkiandrew 1y ago
    The needle is pointing to the magnetic south, which is near our geographic north.
    • WA 1y ago
      Err, no? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_magnetic_pole https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_magnetic_pole https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compass https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compass
      • onraglanroad 1y ago
        From your own first link: "Because opposite poles attract, Earth's south magnetic pole is physically actually a magnetic north pole"
        • WA 1y ago
          Ok I guess I misread: magnetic south pole != south magnetic pole. Got it.
• trhway 1y ago
  >And it was only rather recently that north-up maps became so commonplace. The portolan chart from 1439 is already north-up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portolan_chart#/media/File:Gabriel_Vallseca._Museo_Marítimo,_Barcelona.1439.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portolan_chart#/media/File:Gab...
• sidcool 1y ago
  So many politically incorrect country boundaries. Better don't show country boundaries and just labels.
• tpoacher 1y ago
  It is not wrong in the same since that "assuming - for addition and + for subtraction then 2 + 2 = 0" is not wrong.
• incone123 1y ago
  I prefer maps where the arctic ice is shown in white. I know it isn't a landmass but you can go for a walk on it, unlike all the other blue areas.
  • nmeofthestate 1y ago
    I see they decided to "challenge our preconceived ideas" about international borders when it comes to Crimea.
• nmeofthestate 1y ago
  The resolution isn't great - is that an upside down sailing ship in the Indian Ocean?
• testhest 1y ago
  Its just a pointless waste of time.
• cogogo 1y ago
  The interesting thing to me about this map is it allows me to see more easily how much of the Earth is ocean. With the conventional orientation my brain just keys in on the land.
• tikhonj 1y ago
  For whatever reason, the Berkeley campus maps[1] have East at the top. And, for whatever reason, it always felt natural—probably because it matches the terrain (East is up-hill). It's still surprising how much that has colored my mental orientation in Berkeley even 15 years later. I now consciously know to correct for it, but still think of campus "oriented" in that direction. For years I had to really think about it to remember that up-hill was not, in fact, North. [1]: https://www.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/campus-map-20250609.pdf https://www.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/campus-m... [1]: https://www.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/campus-map-20250609.pdf https://www.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/campus-m...
  • ClarityJones 1y ago
    That's neat. The shape of the campus does fit better on the 8.5x11" paper when printed that way, but that wouldn't have required the text to be aligned the same. I see the main entrance is on Oxford, to the (not South...) West, making this a case where the campus has an orientation and they're putting the top of the campus at the top of the map.
• 47282847 1y ago
  I feel like a lot of the discussions revolve around right or wrong in some absolute sense. I see it more as a question of authority: do you want me to respect your perspective, and are you willing to respect my perspective as equally “right“, respecting my authority on the same level as your own? I invite you to think about why it is important to you to make me agree, and consider how it feels like to you if I were to push my own values and ideas onto you. Is it a sign of strength to require me to use your map, or is it a sign of strength if you adapt to mine, regardless of how many irrational or rational reasons I may give for my preference or not? Why, if somebody expresses discomfort or calls something oppressive or wrong, do you need to “set things right“ instead of just respecting their discomfort? What is the cost to you? This is meant as actual questions for exploration. Remember that even Darwin meant by “survival of the fittest“ the one who is able to adapt, rather than the one who is sticking to some “principles“ and engaging in unnecessary fights. Unnecessary, in the objective sense of survival.
• npteljes 1y ago
  That map is upside down, as the convention is that north is up. It's so widespread that people also say that they live "up north" or "down south". ˙ɹǝɥʇᴉǝ uʍop ǝpᴉsdn ʇou sᴉ ʇxǝʇ sᴉɥʇ 'ɔᴉʇuɐpǝd ƃuᴉǝq ǝɹ,ǝʍ ɟᴉ 'ɹO
• littlecorner 1y ago
  Almost every map is oriented wrong. They should be oriented towards the East (orient comes from the Latin word for east)
• scoofy 1y ago
  .lufpleh eb nac snoitnevnoC
• psychoslave 1y ago
  >Viewed with south on top, a map of the world can seem strange and unfamiliar. Actually no, we could say this one is the closest we might build from the most usual one. Now, not everyone might be equally at ease with this but this is it, how much can we stretch from the most frequent view before we feel some difficulties to find familiar repairs. Here it's not even using an alternative projection.
• codeulike 1y ago
  It kindof is upside down though, isn't it? In the sense that its the opposite way round to that which we are accustomed to.
• triceratops 1y ago
  > Why is north almost always at the top of maps? Because most people live there. Because the people who drew modern maps lived there. Take your pick.
• bandie91 1y ago
  i'm wondering nobody raised an other obvious point where the carthography-patriarchy wants to keep all of us in the darkness (BTW, why being in the dark is bad? is not it arbitrary whether the light or the dark is the good? why can not be the good is bad and the bad good?) is that the Marcator and other sphere-to-plain projections distort landmass area!! so counties are bigger than they made you believe! and other countries are smaller! /sarcasm
• TimPC 1y ago
  The article fails to cover the main point. It's not just about putting the south at the top of the map but doing the projection from the south instead of the north which makes the south appear bigger and the north appear smaller rather than vice versa. I think top vs bottom for good vs bad is weaker than the bigger is better piece they fail to even mention.
• IndySun 1y ago
  It's a brilliant article. Anyone here irritated or moralised should reconsider. "Psychologically, we tend to view things nearer the top as ‘good’ and those lower as ‘bad'." Isn't that the salient point? Just a simple, yet fascinating thing.
• philjackson 1y ago
  Australia finally the right way up.
• hoherd 1y ago
  I wonder if there is a map with a tilted earth that puts the majority of the landmasses in the middle and the oceans at the edges, in order to have the land viewable with the least amount of distortion for the given projection.
  • pchangr 1y ago
    You should totally check this wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_map_projections https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_map_projections For a list of alternative projections And also this one for a whole deep dive in the topic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Map_projection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Map_projection People have gotten very creative about the topic .. also.. the UN actually uses a north-centered view of the world to compromise on this.. it’s really cool https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2f/Small_Flag_of_the_United_Nations_ZP.svg/1024px-Small_Flag_of_the_United_Nations_ZP.svg.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2f/Sm...
  • zhynn 1y ago
    My very favorite map projection is the AuthaGraph map: http://www.authagraph.com http://www.authagraph.com It is a novel (I would say amazing) map projection that manages to retain proportional landmass size by using an "ioso-area-mapping" technique. It maps the sphere to a tetrahedron and then slices and unfolds that tetrahedron into a 2d plane. The method places all of the continents into the map (proportionally!), while also being able to tessellate (so you can move the "viewfinder" to focus on different map subsections without changing the overall map). It's easier to see than describe. The "4" link is an example of modifying the "view" of the tessellated surface to create maps that focus on particular regions. The downside is that "north" and "south" are rather arbitrary points on the map, instead of being at the top/bottom. It is still by far my favorite 2D map projection!
• yencabulator 1y ago
  This argument is much more interesting for maps that do NOT show the whole globe. The map in the article wastes a lot of space for solid blue. The continents just happen to currently mostly reside on the northern hemisphere.
• jedberg 1y ago
  This is a fun one: https://engaging-data.com/country-centered-map-projections/ https://engaging-data.com/country-centered-map-projections/ Click on New Zealand and you get a nearly perfect "East is up" map.
• deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
• hk1337 1y ago
  In space, there is no up or down, right? So, whether the map is upside down or not should be viewer relative? Most languages read left to right, top the bottom, so it would make since the relatively important stuff to you be at the top.
  • MattGrommes 1y ago
    I was wondering what the orientation of the Earth is relative to the plane of the planets in the solar system. You normally see the Earth as basically North/South == Up/Down in pictures of all the planets but I don't know if that's actually true. Interesting thought.
• constantcrying 1y ago
  Given that most of the world is on the northern hemisphere and that almost all people read from top to bottom, it is indeed upside down. The moralizing is indeed tedious, when something is indeed "wrong".
• melchebo 1y ago
  Maybe you'll like this, if you download this .html and view it, you'll see a random projection from a random spot on earth. https://gist.github.com/HenkPoley/8fa7a4a8e25f106585584463c16287f2 https://gist.github.com/HenkPoley/8fa7a4a8e25f106585584463c1... Sadly mostly north oriented. Did some more vibe coding: https://gist.github.com/HenkPoley/0a0eac0e81c53145dec8c19568354b54 https://gist.github.com/HenkPoley/0a0eac0e81c53145dec8c19568...
• stainablesteel 1y ago
  north makes more sense because it's closer to the direction our solar system is moving
• spullara 1y ago
  it is kind of upside down if you look at how much land mass is in the northern hemisphere (68%) vs the southern.
• GuB-42 1y ago
  Like many people here, I dislike the moralizing aspect, so I tried thinking of it on a more technical perspective. Which led me to the question: Why are the tabs and URL on my browser on top while the OS bar is on the bottom? It looks like it would work if we flipped it over, in fact, on mobile, it would work better, and it is an option you can set! Another one: US style power outlets, the one with the ground plug. We always tend to make it look like a little face, with the ground plug at the bottom. Now what if you flip it... it is actually better (i.e. safer)! And clocks. Why is 12 on top? And why do locks have the pins on top in some parts of the world and on the bottom elsewhere? And numeric keypads, why is "1" on top or on the bottom depending on the situation?. Why do trapezoidal connectors (ex: HDMI) have the long side on top? Turning things upside down is not just for maps, sometimes if may even help give some bit of insight.
  • ajsnigrutin 1y ago
    Let's be fair, in some cases, is does look "upside-down" https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinfuriating/comments/cadent/the_peas_are_upside_down/ https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinfuriating/comments/cadent/t... :)
• crtified 1y ago
  For many years, local maps were my day-to-day work. Regulations dictated that north should be at the page top, but exceptions were made so that the relevant land mass would efficiently fit on standard paper sizes. For example, you could fit a lot more detail onto a printed map of Japan with the paper as Portrait, rather than Landscape. So the practical aspects of the printed paper age have long been a side factor in map orientation. And there was no doubt that the exceptions, where maps had north other-than-up, proved mentally more difficult for everybody to deal with. People not used to working with maps would struggle because it didn't align with other maps, and people used to working with maps would struggle because our minds were locked into the convention that came from 95% working with north-up maps!
• nopelynopington 1y ago
  We're lucky enough where we live to have a surviving map of the area from the 1600s. On this map, north is at the bottom, and south is at the top, as there was no convention that said it should be otherwise. From the same mapping survey there are other maps that are not oriented merely south but also southwest, southeast, West entirely. The survey taken in the 1600s was not even consistent from map to map - it was enough to show a compass to indicate which way North is.
• NostraDavid 1y ago
  Pfff, wake me up when someone makes a sideways map, where either east or west is "up".
  • rkomorn 1y ago
    Boring. We need a map as seen from the center of the earth out, instead of seen from space.