How north ended up on top of the map

http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/2/maps-cartographycolonialismnortheurocentricglobe.html

by zvanness • 12 years ago

119 87 12 years ago

america.aljazeera.com

Two explanations came to my mind: 1. East - the direction where the Sun appears - was located on the right because the right hand had a special meaning for people. 2. South was located down (behind the back of someone reading the map) to provide the maximum amount of light to the reader.

decentrality3• 12 years ago

A better "up" would be East, oriented to the Galaxy as a whole, rather than Earth's roll relative to the Sun.

eCa• 12 years ago

Compasses points to the poles, not the centre of the universe. I can see some advantages to have compasses and maps point the same way.

JoeAltmaier3• 12 years ago

Except, of course, that they don't. Magnetic north is up to5 degrees off of our polar axis (center of rotation). "Up to" not because it moves but depending on where you're standing they may line up, as they nearly do here in Iowa.

decentrality3• 12 years ago

Sure, but spatial orientation and temporal orientation are too important to leave to arbitrary tool particulars. It's really bad for the mind.

I get your point ( with correction by @JoeAltmaier ) but with GPS and the like being the `new` tool, and with them needing new thought rather than continuation of the old "because we always did it that way"... I'd definitely go East in the future... along with changing calendars away from solar orientation ( Gregorian primarily ).

But as with most things involving the masses, this all falls into the category of why most use Metric versus Imperial, and why that is such a radical change to expect. Still, great to see a post questioning "up" ...

baddox• 12 years ago

Earth's orientation in the galaxy isn't relevant when making maps of Earth's surface.

jasallen• 12 years ago

The article does get to my base assumptions, but it takes awhile. (1) North Star was what people navigated by first, so would orient maps to that regardless of which way the words were written -- so people started writing the words to fit. (2) Compasses, pick north or south for same reason. North was picked because we were already using the North Star.

It all just makes so much better intuitive sense than a "Conspiracy of Northern European Hegemony"

asolove3• 12 years ago

I agree that "conspiracy" isn't the right explanation, but only people in the Northern Hemisphere would navigate by the North Star to begin with. So we're still stuck at this being based on who made the maps.

But note that the vast majority of people (and therefore civilizations) live in the Northern Hemisphere, so this is statistics more than anything else.

mcv3• 12 years ago

As it happens, the vast majority of the people in the world live in the northern hemisphere. There's really not a lot of land in the southern hemisphere. The equator bisects Africa, South America and Indonesia. China, India, the Middle East, they're all in the northern hemisphere.

georgecmu2• 12 years ago

(1) North Star was what people navigated by first, so would orient maps to that regardless of which way the words were written -- so people started writing the words to fit.

This would be true only for the people that consistently navigated in Northern latitudes, where the North star is high enough above the horizon. For Arabs, who were the predominant maritime power until 1500s, esp. in the Indian Ocean, that was not the case.

raverbashing• 12 years ago

Well, there's the southern cross in the southern hemisphere, I wonder if they used that

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crux

miguelpais2• 12 years ago

But remember also that northern hemisphere navigators like the Portuguese also had to align their maps in a different direction as they crossed the equator and lost their main reference star on their way around Africa.

They soon discovered how to navigate by then aligning with a group of stars called "Cruzeiro do Sul", the Crux constellation[1], which means that it could be reasonable to actually start aligning the maps southwards (and the portuguese were the ones mapping the whole coast of Africa at the time).

But I guess that by that time (around the 1470s), they were already too used to aligning northwards...

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crux

Edit: I meant northern hemisphere navigators, instead of northern european.

danmaz74• 12 years ago

If Portugal is in northern Europe, who is then in southern Europe??

einhverfr8• 12 years ago

One of the most interesting beliefs one runs into in the Middle Ages is the idea that although the world is round, it is impossible to travel across the equator by sea or land. This factors into medieval accounts of Alexander the Great for example.

einhverfr8• 12 years ago

I don't think it is just that. If you haven't read Ptolomy (and in particular all of Tetrabiblos, the Almagest, and his Geographia), you really should. Ptolomy was quite an incredibly observant individual and he worked through things with an attention to detail that is quite impressive.

He clearly understood he was in the Northern Hemisphere, but he placed Alexandria not in the southernmost part of the known world as the article suggests but in the center. A lot of this was pride and the sense that the center had everything good from the edges (see Tetrabiblos), but to some extent everywhere is the center, right?

He painstakingly discusses the proof that the earth is a sphere in Almagest. His geographia is worth reading and directly relevant to this.

I suspect that Ptolomy put the north at the top simply because he was in the Northern Hemisphere and knew it. He displays no great knowledge of navigation, though he does explain how the stars shift as you move north and south (again see Tetrabiblos and Almagest), and he even seemed to be aware that Mercury and Venus revolved around the sun (or so he seemed to say in Tetrabiblos).

All in all he's one of those authors one really has to read if one is interested in history, even the seemingly weird works he wrote (Tetrabiblos is an astrology manual but includes a lot of information about Ptolomy's understanding of geography not found in Geographia, and astronomy not found in Almagest).

asolove3• 12 years ago

Interesting, what do you mean he "understood he was in the Northern Hemisphere"? There are an infinite number of possible ways to divide a sphere into hemispheres, so how did he define the hemispheres and how did he describe the one he was in?

Was he aware that the seasons were the result of the Earth's tilt and that they would be swapped in the other hemisphere as defined by that tilt? (I presume he didn't know that he was in the northern hemisphere because he thought he was closer to the northern magnetic pole.)

igravious2• 12 years ago

Top marks for Ptolemy (I think that's the more usual spelling in English?) citations. But I think the point is that the Northeren Hemisphere gets its northern-ness from magnetic north or the pole star, correct? But what makes north be up/top and south be down/under? Vile European hegemony I tells ya. I jest. But do I? Also, obligatory Gall-Peter's Projection reference for maximum egalitarian cred: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gall%E2%80%93Peters_projection . Choice quote for cartography newbs: "The Mercator projection increasingly inflates the sizes of regions according to their distance from the equator. This inflation results, for example, in a representation of Greenland that is larger than Africa, whereas in reality Africa is 14 times as large. Since much of the technologically underdeveloped world lies near the equator, these countries appear smaller on a Mercator and therefore, according to Peters, seem less significant. On Peters's projection, by contrast, areas of equal size on the globe are also equally sized on the map."

twelvechairs• 12 years ago

There's also (3) True north (the cold poles) aligns with magnetic north. South works too but once the world was cicumnavigated and this was understood it reinforces north-south as an important direction over east-west as temperature changes along this axis but not the other.

mrcactu5• 12 years ago

there's plenty of evidence for "Conspiracy of Northern European Hegemony" just leave Northern Europe and get someone's opinion from there.

georgecmu2• 12 years ago

Interesting historical exploration! The medieval debate on whether North, East or South should be at the top of the map could be linked to the disagreement on the East/North coordinate system convention of the modern day: ENU vs NED.

Generally, land vehicles use the ENU (East-North-Up) convention, with East corresponding to the X axis and Z axis point up (against the gravity vector), while sea and aircraft use the NED (North-East-Down) convention, with X axis pointing North, and Z axis pointing down, aligned with the gravity vector.

einhverfr8• 12 years ago

Interestingly they didn't get to a real explanation. It ended with the idea that for reasons lost to history, Ptolomy appears perhaps to have originated the practice.

The thing is, I don't think that is lost to history. Ptolomy was amazingly meticulous and while he didn't spell out why, he was very clear about enough details I think this could be pieced together further.

couchand• 12 years ago

Regardless of the east vs. north distinction, I find it very unnatural to have an increasing vertical coordinate correspond to a movement towards the earth, if for no other reason that calling sea level zero and using mainly positive numbers above seems very convenient (for any vehicle except submarines).

79522• 12 years ago

If you are measuring sea depth it doesn't make sense to have a minus sign when most of your values will be negative.

Also, it is important to remember that sea level is an entirely arbitrary concept that depends on your frame of reference. On nautical charts elevations are usually measured against the lowest tide level which will be different to the datum on GPS (for example).

est2• 12 years ago

The Chinese make south top because the emperor must facing south to rule. 南面称尊, 面南背北, 坐北朝南. So if they look at maps they sure must look at south.

dschiptsov• 12 years ago

Because a compass points there?)

ef4• 12 years ago

But a compass points south equally well.

qbrass• 12 years ago

But when you're facing north, the sun is behind you shining on the map.

secstate2• 12 years ago

Seems to me the vast majority of habitable area lies in the Northern hemisphere, so this would likely be an issue of statistics, not subconscious superiority.

Also, magnetic north on a compass is a natural way to orient something.

mcv3• 12 years ago

magnetic north on a compass is a natural way to orient something.

More so than magnetic south?

jessaustin• 12 years ago

More so than magnetic south?

Perhaps more so than magnetic west-by-northwest, etc. The point is that there are two orientations that make sense with respect to compasses, rather than a hundred. As to why it's a particular one of the two available possibilities, that doesn't seem to require a conspiracy. At some point a critical mass of cartographers simply chose north rather than south.

dllthomas• 12 years ago

"Also, magnetic north on a compass is a natural way to orient something."

Not any more natural than magnetic South, so far as I can see.

jackgavigan• 12 years ago

Someone needs to tell McArthur that his "Universal Corrective Map of the World" is missing an entire continent.

kiliancs• 12 years ago

Just a small almost off-topic correction: Majorca was not Spanish-ruled in 1375, hence the name of the map "Catalan Atlas" attributed to cartographer Abraham Cresques as well as the mentioned nickname of "el jueu de les bruixoles" (in Catalan language).

tokenadult• 12 years ago

It's an interesting article. I looked for references to Chinese practice. In Chinese, a (magnetic) compass is referred to as a "指南针," literally "south-indicating needle," so it does appear that south was the most important cardinal direction for the Chinese-speaking people who first used compasses. The article notes that old Arab maps showed south on the top, and attributed this to Chinese practice in map-making (which, if I remember correctly without sources at hand, was not fully uniform in this regard).

Overall, the article offers an interesting discussion of trade-offs in map-making, including the trade-off of what country to put in the middle of a flat wall map that shows the whole world. I have become quite used to Chinese wall maps of the world in Mercator or equal-area projections that display China in the middle (left-to-right) and consequently split North America along both sides of the map.

asolove3• 12 years ago

The Chinese name has a good deal to do with cultural tradition. In traditional Chinese practice, north is the direction of evil. Cities were planned with gates at the south and rulers sat facing south. Magnets were actually first used as tools in geomancy rather than navigation. [1] This is why you would not call a magnet a points-north-needle.

Of course, the association of North with evil is itself probably because of the Northern hemisphere seasons. North, cold, winter and evil and all grouped together in opposition to South, warm, summer, and good.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compass#Geomancy_and_feng_shui

sardonicbryan• 12 years ago

Not to mention the Mongols and Manchurians who were always trying to invade, as opposed to the tribute-paying Southern kingdoms. There's a reason they built the Great Wall to the north and not the south.

Weather also does play a role, as the south was able to generate three harvests a year vs. two in the north. Historically, the capital of China has been in the south, only being moved north during the Ming (aka second to last) Dynasty.

Not sure how much any of that has to do with compass points, but did want to elaborate a little on the cultural/historical context of north vs. south in China.

Claudus• 12 years ago

A pointed needle can be magnetized to point either North or South. But you definitely want some way of distinguishing between the two ends, and making one end pointed seems like the easiest way to do so. Maybe the magnetization just happened to result in the needle pointing North the first time and that set the standard.

Really interesting article on making a compass. http://www.wildwoodsurvival.com/survival/navigation/rbimprov...

acheron• 12 years ago

I had heard a story once that the verb "orient" (as in finding where you are, aligning yourself/something else, etc.) was related to east being on the top of the map: you figured out which direction was "oriental" (i.e. eastern), and matched it with the top of the map.

Later I researched it though and while that may have contributed, the more likely original meaning came from people wanting to build their churches and such to face east.

kbutler• 12 years ago

The position of most prominence and importance on a map is the center, not the top.

Would you use a map application that always put the location you searched for in the top left?

The article referenced this briefly (Italy and Jerusalem were disappointed to not be at the center).

The manufactured controversy that Europe and America are traditionally at the top of global maps is rather silly.

squigs25• 12 years ago

Is it unfair to also ask why the poles of the earth don't appear on the sides of a map?

dhughes• 12 years ago

Etymology Online has an interesting description for the word north:

"...possibly ultimately from PIE ner- "left," also "below," as north is to the left when one faces the rising sun..."*

It's pretty much arguing over our ancestors saying "to the left" in reference to the rising sun.

nroose• 12 years ago

That article says that Stuart McArthur on Jan. 26, 1979!

filereaper• 12 years ago

The West Wing covered this on the topic of the Mercator Projection: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVX-PrBRtTY

cheers.

jpatokal• 12 years ago

For Americans, it’s easy to think that our position, at the top left of most maps, is the intrinsically preferable one.

This clearly was not written by a geek. Obviously the top right is preferable, since it's the only region where both decimal latitude and longitude are positive.

ableal• 12 years ago

Interesting map; also a site with an extensive collection of old maps:

"While there is something endearing about the idea of an Indiana map maker in 1871 [ preparing an atlas http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/s/91721z ] with Indiana squarely in the center of the world, the unfortunate side effect was that most of the Midwest disappeared into the gaping crease between atlas pages."

How north ended up on top of the map

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