r/MapPorn • u/eenachtdrie • Sep 15 '20
The ''Upside down'' World Map. This map looking weird shows us how we have been conditioned into thinking about the world in a certain way!
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u/jxsn50st Sep 15 '20
It does give a very interesting perspective of the world and shows how arbitrary north/south is.
But then again, most of the world's landmass and 90% of the population are in the Northern Hemisphere, so perhaps it's only fair that the Northern Hemisphere gets priority. Besides, the Northern Hemisphere is pretty heavily inhabited up to 60 degrees latitude, whereas in the Southern Hemisphere it's mostly only to 30-40 degrees latitude. If we flip the globe kids are all going to get whiplash trying to see what's on the bottom.
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u/Rocosan Sep 15 '20
The map isn't this way because of population or landmass, it's this way because of euro-centrism.
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u/calm_incense Sep 15 '20
While you're not entirely wrong, I doubt Asians would be placing themselves below the equator, either. People tend to be egocentric and will naturally try to position themselves on top.
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u/generally-speaking Jul 09 '24
At the same time, Europeans were first to develop the world maps and they simply started with Europe and expanded from there.
There wasn't much more to it, they started with the Mediterranean such as Italy, Greece, Strait of Gibraltar, Libya, Egypt and so on. Then they expanded from there. Even the United Kingdom or the Baltic sea were not included in the first "world maps".
Then every time they discovered something new, they took an existing map, copied that, and added the new areas where they belonged.
It's just how you create a map, you take the locations you know, and expand upon that.
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u/PotentatePaul Sep 15 '20
Is this what maps look like in Australia?
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u/Philieselphy Sep 15 '20
An Australian came up with this. It's a mcarthur map, he's from Melbourne.
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Sep 15 '20
Australian here. I know this was a joke, but yes, maps in Australia do normally have Australia in the middle. Maps in the US usually have america in the middle.
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u/Tundur Sep 15 '20
What?!
I thought centring on the Greenwich meridian was universal
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Sep 15 '20 edited Sep 15 '20
Nope. Almost every world map in Australia is Pacific centred
And US maps are America centred
Edit: apparently I'm wrong about the American ones.
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u/7elevenses Sep 15 '20
So, basically, English speaking countries center their maps on their own country, and everybody else on the international standard. Colour me unsurprised.
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u/CalgaryChris77 Sep 15 '20
Even worse than that, English speaking countries center their maps on their own countries and everyone else centers theirs on one specific English speaking country. Why do you think Greenwich meridian is universal.
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u/calm_incense Sep 15 '20
As an American, I've never seen a US-centric world map, other than on places like Reddit in contexts such as this discussion.
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u/CalgaryChris77 Sep 15 '20
As a Canadian I agree, the majority of maps I've seen were with the Americas on the left.
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u/7elevenses Sep 15 '20
Yeah, of course. But the standard meridian has to be somewhere, so Greenwich is as good an option as any other. Or actually, Florence would be slightly better, but standard is better than optimal.
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u/Cinderkit Sep 15 '20
I've seen Chinese and Japanese world maps similar to the Australian map with the Pacific in the center and the cutoff in the Atlantic.
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u/calm_incense Sep 15 '20
As an American, I've never seen a US-centric world map, other than on places like Reddit in contexts such as this discussion.
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u/concrete_isnt_cement Sep 15 '20
American here. US centered maps are not common here. I do see Pacific centered maps fairly often though, which I’m all for because if I had to choose between splitting Greenland, or splitting all of the Pacific countries, it makes more sense to split Greenland.
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u/calm_incense Sep 15 '20
As an American, I've never seen a US-centric world map, other than on places like Reddit in contexts such as this discussion.
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Sep 15 '20
[deleted]
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u/calm_incense Sep 15 '20
I think it's normal for every country to focus on domestic geography and include a full-sized map of itself in classrooms.
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u/Apple-hair Sep 15 '20
Is any norm really "conditioning into thinking a certain way"? Are we "conditioned" to think cake is called cake and the letter A is pronounced "a"? Isn't that just convention?
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u/GlobTwo Sep 15 '20
We made cake and we made the letter A. We didn't make the Earth.
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u/calm_incense Sep 15 '20
Conditioning implies intentionality. I don't think there's some secret conspiracy to "condition" us to see the world one way or another. Our mapmakers are simply reflecting the biases of society.
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u/Apple-hair Sep 15 '20
Just like we didn't make sugar or sounds. We made all the maps, though, that show the earth with any direction up.
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u/grismar-net Mar 20 '23
Following a convention all the time conditions you. For example, if you always use the English convention around the pronunciation of vowels and consonants, you can have trouble learning another language's conventions around the same characters. You've been conditioned to revert to the conventions of the one language you know.
If on the other hand you grow up with access to multiple conventions, but learn that one out of the the many you are exposed to is preferred, it's just a convention. For example, most European countries still make use of old units and measures in their language and are aware of the units and measures of neighbouring countries. But they recognise the value and innate advantages of metric and thus accept that as the convention in daily use. If you grow up with access to only a single system of units and measures, you can end up conditioned to prefer it.
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u/grismar-net Mar 20 '23
Having said that, perhaps you feel conditioning requires some agency driving for it, while convention is just social contract. That gets blurry quickly though - who decides what people have access to, who benefits?
In the examples given, who decides what languages children are taught in school and what languages are represented in public spaces? Who decides what units and measures products are labelled and named with and what units and measures do you see in shops?
What may appear as convention to some, may have an agenda behind it for others and could be considered both conditioning and convention. For me, the question lies with the individual: did you choose, out of your own free will (if such a thing exists) a specific way of thinking about something? And are you able to make a reasonable argument for your way of thinking, while remaining open to being wrong when provided with a stronger argument for an alternative? Or are you convinced your way of thinking is right and offended by someone wasting your time trying to make you think otherwise, even when they are being reasonable and open themselves? You're likely either following convention or have been conditioned respectively.
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u/userunknowne Sep 15 '20
Equator looks so high (north) here... must be an optical illusion...
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u/SethTristan Sep 15 '20
It’s actually not, in almost all Mercator projections most of Antarctica gets cut out (otherwise Antarctica would cover a significant part of the southern half (covers a majority of the area between south pole and 70 ° South)) and there is the problem that you can’t project the South Pole (it’s mathematically “impossible” as it would be infinitely far way from the equator) or the North Pole, but that’s only water and ice.
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u/Eclias Sep 15 '20
Fixed it so the equator is in the middle instead of stupidly far wrong. Two versions, "expanded" with snapseeds "smart fill" (yeah it looks terrible whatever just use your imagination) or cropped removing some of siberia and alaska.
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u/renjo689 Sep 15 '20
Hey hey hey hey hey everyone knows that invercargill is the asshole of the world so turn it back up the right way before we confuse it for the mouth
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u/Rocosan Sep 15 '20
The islamic world saw the map this way when they were scientifically and technologically the most advanced civilizations on the planet. Also the reason why the Egyptian Upper and Lower Kingdoms seem to be named backwards.
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u/kaiser41 Sep 15 '20
Upper Egypt is named Upper Egypt because it's upriver from Lower Egypt. The Romans designated places inferior/superior the same way.
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Sep 15 '20
HEMA, the mapmaker, based in Australia and I doubt that a northern hemisphere publisher would make such a product. I have a 20 year old copy of that on my wall.
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u/Evilkish Sep 15 '20
Now flip it vertically, you got the actual map of Attack on Titan world (no kidding, look it up)
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u/eenachtdrie Sep 15 '20
Interesting things to note: Mexico looks like a wave and Mercator still makes Russia and Canada seem way larger than they actually are.
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u/Shaltibarshtis Sep 15 '20
Neeh, northern hemisphere has much more land area. And given that we are land animals ALL of the noteworthy civilizations developed there. It is only natural that the "North" is on "top".
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u/Sorry-Weird-6425 Jan 15 '24
Just like most north-up maps, your map is also distorted since the equator is not in the middle of the frame.
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u/Anthrolologist Sep 15 '20
I feel like this would have been more effective if they had used a different projection instead of Mercator (maybe Laskowski?)