Imagine a map with Australia on top and Russia at the bottom — the southern hemisphere up, the northern hemisphere down. Most people would immediately think the map is upside down. But have you ever wondered why that is? Why is North always on top, as if the whole world agreed to line itself up against an invisible point in the sky? And no, the aliens did not ask us to do that.
The Blue Marble Test
We can explore this through a small episode from NASA. In 1972, astronauts aboard Apollo 17 took a beautiful picture of our planet and called it the Blue Marble. Now, the orientation of the spacecraft was such that it was traveling towards the moon, and a picture of a well-lit Earth was captured.
Here is the twist: the image as captured showed the south pole on top and the north pole at the bottom. When the image was eventually published for the general audience, NASA changed its orientation to bring north to the top. The instinct was so strong that nobody would have accepted it any other way.
Thank Gerardus Mercator
So deeply rooted in our minds is the perception that North should always be on top that it can be loosely attributed to a famous Flemish figure in the cartography world: Gerardus Mercator. When he released his version of the map to the world in 1569, the conformality of every line describing the shapes of countries and continents — while also maintaining the local directions that could be measured by a compass — was something of a true genius breakthrough. He even accounted for the curvature of the Earth while drawing the map.
This north-at-top alignment, though, is only a few hundred years old. And it has its roots in the exploratory voyages that happened around that time. People had always looked to the North Pole star as a point of reference for their exploration. Sailors found it extremely useful, and it helped them explore new areas and move ahead with confidence.
Because North was pointed to the top on Mercator's map, it gradually became the standard. There is also the fact that the North had been more explored than its counterpart, the South.
So Is It the Only Arrangement?
There is no other specific reason — at least, none that has been found yet. We would probably have to travel back in time to ask Gerardus why he chose the arrangement that he did.
Interestingly, there are also mentions in history where the arrow pointed towards the EAST, in the direction of the rising sun; there is said to be ample evidence for that in the Bible as well. And the direction went SOUTH for others — the early Egyptians or the Arabs also used south as the top of their maps. So a lot came down to which arrangement stayed longer in everyday usage over time, and we cannot disregard the impositions that happened during the colonization era either.
British Imperialism, colonialism, exploratory voyages, the North Pole star, map accuracy — there could be a lot of reasons for why North ended up at the top of the map. What is good, though, is having different perspectives for why some things are the way they are.
Well, that is about it for this pointy topic up top. So until next time, remember to stay curious.