This map is not upside down

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.

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.

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%20...

[1] https://www.mapresources.com/products/world-digital-vector-r...

They link this[1] article, which I don't plan to read. I, too, rolled my eyes.

1: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/194855061140104...

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!

In Brasilia, Brazil only main avenues are named and all addresses are also by block, just like in Japan.

You lose a lot of the details of the northern hemisphere when its compressed downwards in that map.

> 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.

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.

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.

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.

"The enemy's gate is down"!

One of my favorite episodes! This immediately came to mind. I was due for a rewatch, thanks for linking.

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).

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 below. And the worst part is that if we keep believing we’re below, we’ll continue to be below! 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

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

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-rober...

I mean you could just Venmo him

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.

> (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.

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.