I’m from New York, and in New York, the top of the map is frequently not north, but rather aligned to the long edge of the terrain shown - the most prominent example are maps of Manhattan. In many places the maps are oriented based on local needs, deviating from north.
Military maps are also generally oriented by strategic needs, and any direction may be “up” on them. Transportation systems maps are also frequently so abstract that they distort both direction and distance for ease of understanding.
There are also plenty of maps of the world from an arctic or antarctic perspective. In these maps north or south radiate from the center of the map.
These manipulations are so common that I feel like I’m misunderstanding the discussion.
Well, of course there are exceptions. Manhattan is shown the way it is because it is dominated by the street grid, which is not quite NEWS, but fairly close to it. Polar-region maps that want to show the poles in the middle cannot possibly be done with a pole at the top. But that doesn’t change the fact that the vast majority of flat maps made in the western world have north at the top – even maps of Middle Earth and the lands of the Nonestic Ocean. Even subway-system maps put north approximately at the top, at least in New York and London.
In the northeast US, of course, we have the further bias that virtually all our major rivers run from north to south – “down” on our maps – and non-natives puzzle themselves endlessly over how Maine can be called “Downeast”.
On the subject of where the middle of a world map goes, the dominant US use changed from having the middle in the Atlantic or Europe (the older tradition) to putting the the US in the middle and splitting Eurasia in two, as a reaction to Pearl Harbor, a reminder that Japan wasn’t quite so far away as we had been thinking.
Maori navigated by the southern star systems, so traditionally, South is ‘up’. Their new year is dictated by the rising of Pleiades in May or June (late autumn, early winter).
And early roman maps (Cite: I’m reading Vanessa Collingridge’s *Boudica *at the moment) had the Mediterranean in the centre of their maps with Europe, Asia and Africa distorted into a circle and surrounded by the sea.
A world map has north at the top for many reasons (population spread, socio-economic impact, nice big blank areas of sea for extraneous info at the bottom etc etc.
A New Zealand map tends to have north somewhat off-centre to fit the most land mass onto the least amount of paper.
A Maori map would have South at the top.
Down here, we celebrate New Year’s on Jan 1st. There is a growing trend for mid-winter (or Matariki) events, but they’re nowhere near supplanting the ‘official’ event.
I’d say US maps have US in the centre because all mapmakers around the World put their own country there as that is most convenient for the map users in that area.
A little anecdote. A while ago I visited Tallinn together with a couple of friends who had never been there, whereas it was my fourth or fifth visit, so I was the acting guide. Suddenly I realised I had absolutely no idea whereabouts in town I was and this was because my mental map has North at the bottom. When I turned the map around so it fitted with that I had no problems. This is actually the proper thing to do when using a map to orient yourself with your surroundings.
Pre-WW2 US maps frequently put the Atlantic in the middle all the same, so the West would be in the west and the East would be in the east. (Modern children tend to puzzle over why the Far East is in the West.)
Modern world maps for educational use in the U.S. generally return to the older standard with the Prime Meridian in the center and the International Date Line on the edges. I haven’t seen a map with North America in the center in some time.
Powers &8^]
I was in Toronto about a dozen years ago, maybe more. They have an underground passage area with shops called ‘The PATH’. The PATH covers about a 20 block area (actually a bit more). Each building has their own network of stores and passages underneath in their basement, and connects them to other buildings in a sort of haphazard fashion. The result is a maze reminiscent of the original labyrinth of Knossos except not as clearly laid out.
Fortunately, there are maps all over the place. Unfortunately, the maps are not only poor in quality with very little detail. For example, the maps showed the outlines of the buildings above (which didn’t really do you much good since you were underground), but didn’t show the names of the stores that happened to be all around you.
Even worse, each map had a different direction on top. You’d wander through one area of the maze, and see one map with North on top, wander around a bit more, and find another map with East on the top. Maybe this was done in the good Canadian way of not favoring one particular direction over another, Maybe it was done just to tease the Minotaur.
I have pretty good sense of direction, but easily got loss in the confusion of tunnels. After wandering for over an hour trying to find my way around, I finally found an exit, climbed the stairs and realized I may had been two hundred feet from where I started.
The way I’m reading the discussion, that’s what everyone is saying: Direction is arbitrary, ease of use is more important - the only reason north is ‘up’ on most world maps is convenience of use - the majority of users are simply familiar with that configuration. When the map is for a more local area, ‘up’ becomes any arbitrary compass point.
I forgot to mention in my earlier post that roman maps tended to have east at the top, because that made Greece ‘higher’ than most other countries - and everyone ‘knew’ that all civilization ‘descended’ from the Grecians.