# Why North is Up - the Seasons and the Calendar **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [January 14, 2011, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-north-is-up-the-seasons-and-the-calendar/567651 "2011-01-14T22:03:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Rico](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rico/32/3582_2.png) [@Rico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rico)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2011, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-north-is-up-the-seasons-and-the-calendar/567651/21 "2011-01-19T06:06:10Z")
\ Merged two threads on the same column into one. \ ---
**Author:** ![Floater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/dc4da7/32.png) [@Floater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Floater)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2011, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-north-is-up-the-seasons-and-the-calendar/567651/22 "2011-01-19T12:36:13Z")
Of course North is up. Otherwise Australia couldn’t be called “down under”. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2011, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-north-is-up-the-seasons-and-the-calendar/567651/23 "2011-01-19T15:15:49Z")
Cecil wrote in the second paragraph, “People who live in the southern hemisphere like to give the impression they could care less about how maps are oriented.” I think they _couldn’t_ care less. The “could/couldn’t care less” thing is an old pet peeve of mine. The first is slang and implies the opposite of what it actually means; the second is grammatically correct. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2011, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-north-is-up-the-seasons-and-the-calendar/567651/24 "2011-01-19T15:46:21Z")
> [@JQuaffer](#): > > I think my argument boils down to that if the South becomes top, i.e. the top dog hemisphere. Then the Southern hemisphere’s Seasonal Progression would be the one the world would follow since its top (its what we do now with North being the top). If we follow the Southern Hemisphere progression of the seasons many calendars no longer makes sense. So changing of South to top would mean the Calendar would need to take a 6 month skip (forward or back) so that the Seasons of the Top Hemisphere match the many of the calendars the world uses. And why again would this be? Because you think we would still want “Spring” to start the calendar, so would set the calendar to start with July in the _middle_ of _Southern_ winter? > [@](#): > > Fundamentally I’d say the reason North is up is since the easiest marker to use during the day is the Sun and using the progression of the sun across the sky (I can’t find a reference to any culture referring to the sun traveling up or down the sky), using a right hand dominance and preference to follow things from start to end. Then if you were drawing a map or giving directions you would orient you right hand east (rising Sun), left west (setting Sun) therefore you end up looking North as up. Eh, that doesn’t make much sense for cultures that expect to read from left to right. Wouldn’t we want to orient so that the left is the sunrise and right is the sunset, so facing south? > [@Wheelz](#): > > So, the calendar itself wouldn’t change _per se_, but 2011 ends on June 30th, and then instead of July, we move directly to January 2012? Is that it? How exactly would that be southern-centric? I still don’t get it. No, what he’s saying is instead of calendars running from January through December, they would run July through June or some such. That way the calendar starts in “spring” (except it’s midwinter) and ends in winter (midwinter, not winter’s end). So after June 2011, we’d get a new calendar starting with July for the year 2012. Because apparently one form of cultural baggage (the idea that the year runs “spring through winter”) outweighs another form of cultural baggage (the year runs Jan through Dec). ---
**Author:** ![JQuaffer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5fc32e/32.png) [@JQuaffer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JQuaffer)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2011, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-north-is-up-the-seasons-and-the-calendar/567651/25 "2011-01-19T21:42:16Z")
Irishman and Wheelz, Using the Georgian calendar as an example, currently January through December (if we skip the argument on the when winter starts and ends but simply go with the Winter Solstice being the end/start of the progression of the seasons, an event celebrated in many cultures) follows Spring to Summer to Fall to Winter, in the Northern Hemisphere, the top hemisphere. If the South was made top and its progression of the seasons is given dominance (as currently the Northern hemisphere is) the seasons and the Calendar don’t align, January is no longer the start and December the end of the season progression. So the Calendar would need to take a 6 month skip. So January starts shortly after the Southern hemisphere’s Winter Solstice, as it did when the North was top. ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2011, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-north-is-up-the-seasons-and-the-calendar/567651/26 "2011-01-20T12:38:12Z")
> [@JQuaffer](#): > > If the South was made top and its progression of the seasons is given dominance (as currently the Northern hemisphere is) the seasons and the Calendar don’t align, January is no longer the start and December the end of the season progression. So the Calendar would need to take a 6 month skip. So January starts shortly after the Southern hemisphere’s Winter Solstice, as it did when the North was top. The seasons and the calendar don’t align now. January first has no particular significance pertaining to the seasons, it’s an accident of the history of the calendar. Even if the population of the temperate and sub-tropic areas of the southern hemisphere suddenly rose to despotic world power and decided all maps would henceforth have south on the top they’d see no need to change the calendar as they’d be used to the way it is now and there’s no inherent connection between the start of the year and anything relating to the seasons. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2011, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-north-is-up-the-seasons-and-the-calendar/567651/27 "2011-01-20T16:50:59Z")
> [@JQuaffer](#): > > Irishman and Wheelz, > Using the Georgian calendar as an example, currently January through December … follows Spring to Summer to Fall to Winter, in the Northern Hemisphere, the top hemisphere. If the South was made top and its progression of the seasons is given dominance (as currently the Northern hemisphere is) the seasons and the Calendar don’t align, January is no longer the start and December the end of the season progression. So the Calendar would need to take a 6 month skip. So January starts shortly after the Southern hemisphere’s Winter Solstice, as it did when the North was top. Why does January have to be first? Because it’s currently done that way? Why does changing one historical arbitrary convention require you to change another historical arbitrary convention? The Southern Hemisphere folks are already accustomed to thinking of July as winter and January as summer - they won’t want to change that merely to make us silly northern hemisphere goobers feel a little better about losing the globes and maps. > [@](#): > > (if we skip the argument on the when winter starts and ends but simply go with the Winter Solstice being the end/start of the progression of the seasons, an event celebrated in many cultures) Winter solstice is in December. So really winter starts sometime around Dec 1 and runs until Dec 21, at which point it’s Spring? Even though some of the coldest weather doesn’t occur until late January and even February? Why should we pick some arbitrary social convention over the currently established social convention? ---
**Author:** ![SARdean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b3f665/32.png) [@SARdean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SARdean)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2011, 8:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-north-is-up-the-seasons-and-the-calendar/567651/28 "2011-01-23T08:38:13Z")
> [@John\_W.Kennedy](#): > > Heck, the English-speaking world didn’t decide whether the year began on January 1[sup]st[/sup] or March 25[sup]th[/sup] until 1752! > > As to navigational degrees vs. geometrical degrees, I’d say it’s almost certainly [sic] that navigational degrees start with north because that’s where a compass starts, and then go clockwise because clockwise is “natural”… Since we’re on the topic of reckoning directions, and reckoning of some calendars other than Gregorian, note that the key direction of a traditional Chinese magnetic compass is the compass point oriented towards the SOUTH (not to the north as in today’s conventional magnetic compass i.e. the ‘top of the hour’). China is in the northern hemisphere so southward faces towards the SUN, which is the male aspect (to the female moon) in the Yin (f) Yang (m) duality. The invention of the compass in China arose more from the practice of geomancy (feng shui) than for applying to navigation, to which it was eventually adapted. ---
**Author:** ![SARdean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b3f665/32.png) [@SARdean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SARdean)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2011, 9:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-north-is-up-the-seasons-and-the-calendar/567651/29 "2011-01-23T09:20:14Z")
> [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](#): > > Just a technical nit-pick: the Islamic calendar follows the moon, not the seasons. Their calendar is out of sync with the solar calendar: a year is 12 lunar cycles (that is, a month is the period from new moon to new moon), regardless of seasons. > > The Jewish/Hebrew calendar follows the seasons, although there are two “new years” – the official calendar year actually begins in the autumn (Northern Hemishpere) with Rosh Hashonah, but the naming of months and the religious year begins in the spring (Northern Hem) with the month of Passover. As for Chinese calendrical reckoning, a combination or mixed solar-lunar cycle is the basis. The agricultural seasonal markers are referenced to the solar cycle, but since the ~29 day lunar cycles are more readily observable by farmers at night, 12 or 13 lunar months can occur within a given ‘year’. Every so often a leap 13th month has to be inserted so that the start of the lunar new year cycle doesn’t drift out of synch with respect to constellations that occur around the winter solstice. The summer solstice is considered to be the mid-summer season (longest period of daylight in the northern hemisphere), not the beginning of the summer season as is now customary. ---
**Author:** ![SARdean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b3f665/32.png) [@SARdean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SARdean)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2011, 9:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-north-is-up-the-seasons-and-the-calendar/567651/30 "2011-01-23T09:30:37Z")
[quote=“John\_W.Kennedy, post:7, topic:567651”] [ul] [li]navigational degrees start with north because that’s where a compass starts, and then go clockwise because clockwise is “natural” (at least in the Northern Hemisphere[/ul][/li][/QUOTE] So why do clock hands rotate clockwise and why is this ‘natural’ I wonder. They could just as well rotate anti-clockwise (and there are some novelty mirror image clock mechanisms available to purchase that do in fact work ‘backwards’). ---
**Author:** ![SARdean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b3f665/32.png) [@SARdean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SARdean)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2011, 9:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-north-is-up-the-seasons-and-the-calendar/567651/31 "2011-01-23T09:33:48Z")
> [@Irishman](#): > > Yes, **Chronos** , it is weird that the calendar starts in January - mid winter - yet when we list the seasons, we typically list them “spring, summer, fall, winter”. There’s still a cultural element to starting with spring. So why is the expression “north south east west”, and not “north east south west”? Perhaps to avoid confusion with northeast and southwest? ---
**Author:** ![SARdean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b3f665/32.png) [@SARdean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SARdean)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2011, 9:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-north-is-up-the-seasons-and-the-calendar/567651/32 "2011-01-23T09:52:26Z")
> [@John\_W.Kennedy](#): > > One might add that most people over the age of five and under the age of 18, 22 or so tend to think of the year as starting in the fall. Except in the late 40s and the 50s, when it was more likely to start with summer, in the US. The school or academic year start times… but did children of nobility who did not tend fields in the spring-summer-fall follow this same academic year I wonder. What was Oxford`s academic year hundreds of years ago before todays universal education (in the west) for 5 - 20 year olds qstnmrk ---
**Author:** ![SARdean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b3f665/32.png) [@SARdean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SARdean)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2011, 10:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-north-is-up-the-seasons-and-the-calendar/567651/33 "2011-01-23T10:05:54Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I don’t know of any calendar that would have a problem with that. I mean, after all, Australia uses the same calendar as Europe and the US, and it doesn’t cause them any trouble. Could you give an example of what would happen? > > More practically, if you’re holding the map so the Sun is at your back (to make it easier to read), you’re probably facing northish. This is true regardless of dominant hand. Mercator projection cartography originated to depict vertical merdians and parallel latitudes, which facilitates solving navigational problems of speed-time-distance-direction by graphical methods of inspection at a time when sailing ship speeds were comparatively slow. One can navigate with a map orientation of either north up or head(ing) up as is common also for radar and GPS route plotting displays. If you head up sun, rather than down sun or cross sun, then you squint. Gnomon shadows and sun dial rays lie to the north in the nor.hem. My guess is that meridians are based on orange fruit segments! ---
**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2011, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-north-is-up-the-seasons-and-the-calendar/567651/34 "2011-01-24T02:31:59Z")
> [@SARdean](#): > > So why do clock hands rotate clockwise and why is this ‘natural’ I wonder. In the northern hemisphere, sundials go clockwise. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2011, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-north-is-up-the-seasons-and-the-calendar/567651/35 "2011-01-24T02:51:10Z")
Or rather, clockwise is the direction that a sundial goes in the northern hemisphere. To put the cause and effect in the right order. And the reason that the northern hemisphere sundials got precedence is that, even aside from the fact that there are more people in the north, the northerners also happen to have invented clocks before the southerners. ---
**Author:** ![Floater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/dc4da7/32.png) [@Floater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Floater)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2011, 9:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-north-is-up-the-seasons-and-the-calendar/567651/36 "2011-01-24T09:25:17Z")
Do you mean to say that clocks were invented before the southerners were? ---
**Author:** ![Hairy\_Bob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ecc23a/32.png) [@Hairy\_Bob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hairy_Bob)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2011, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-north-is-up-the-seasons-and-the-calendar/567651/37 "2011-01-24T14:15:51Z")
/Nitpick/ “People who live in the southern hemisphere like to give the impression they **could care less** about how maps are oriented.” I’ll let David Mitchell explain. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxLdIbKaPlY](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxLdIbKaPlY) ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2011, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-north-is-up-the-seasons-and-the-calendar/567651/38 "2011-01-24T16:16:33Z")
> [@SARdean](#): > > So why do clock hands rotate clockwise and why is this ‘natural’ I wonder. It’s an accident of history that sundails were invented in the northern hemisphere. Therefore, as the sun progresses across the sky, the shadows cast by the sun roll from West to East across the ground. Clocks were invented to mirror the timekeeping system already in place, so “clockwise” matches the movement of the sundial in the Northern hemisphere. Because “clockwise” is conditioned behavior, it is “natural” to proceed clockwise from the straight ahead bearing when navigating. > [@SARdean](#): > > So why is the expression “north south east west”, and not “north east south west”? Perhaps to avoid confusion with northeast and southwest? Possibly, but also possibly to pair the opposites. North-South versus East-West, making a grid. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2011, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-north-is-up-the-seasons-and-the-calendar/567651/39 "2011-01-24T16:44:14Z")
> [@Hairy\_Bob](#): > > /Nitpick/ > “People who live in the southern hemisphere like to give the impression they **could care less** about how maps are oriented.” > > I’ll let David Mitchell explain. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxLdIbKaPlY](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxLdIbKaPlY) My brother! See post 23. ---
**Author:** ![cinsavant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@cinsavant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cinsavant)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2011, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-north-is-up-the-seasons-and-the-calendar/567651/40 "2011-02-01T12:57:31Z")
Slightly off subject, in medieval times east was at the top of the page because that was the holy land, the origion of all that was important. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-north-is-up-the-seasons-and-the-calendar/567651.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-north-is-up-the-seasons-and-the-calendar/567651.md?page=3)