Map of the world

[SirArtturi]

This is a bit unrelated but I was just wondering why earth is always viewed (in photos and maps) like north/europe on top. How about from different angle or upsidedown view? If you look the earth from space, it really depends much on the angle you are viewing it...

Would make interesting arrangement...

[TradeMark]

It makes perfect sense to be like it is now, urban civilication started in europe, and most of the bottom part of the map are poor f****s who live in their own s**t, and arent aware of the world, how it looks like etc... no schools.

Why do we write top-down, instead of bottom-top?? Does that make sense...

Why is our head at the top of our body?

Now you know...

[SirArtturi]

It makes perfect sense to be like it is now, urban civilication started in europe, and most of the bottom part of the map are poor f****s who live in their own s**t, and arent aware of the world, how it looks like etc... no schools.

I ignore this statement.

Why do we write top-down, instead of bottom-top?? Does that make sense...

Why is our head at the top of our body?

Now you know...

And you are missing the point. Viewing the earth is not the same thing as writing from top to bottom or having a head on top of your body. I assume your whole reply was just a troll to ridicule my reasoning here...

[Pxtl]

If you look at very old maps, many of them had east=up... the north=up convention didn't start until later.

And Trademark, you're a dick.

[TradeMark]

Eh? i wasnt trolling, you just dont or dont want to understand.

And you are missing the point. Viewing the earth is not the same thing as writing from top to bottom or having a head on top of your body. I assume your whole reply was just a troll to ridicule my reasoning here...

It is the same thing, its built in our brains to put everything on TOP instead of bottom.

[CarRepairer]

I could put Finland on the bottom just to break your ego.

http://www.springfiles.com/show_file.php?id=229

[TradeMark]

I have less ego than you really

[EatMyShrapnel]

It's a flaw in the Mercator projection he's using. Sadly, when you unwrap a sphere onto a cylinder you get this mess. Every projection is going to get problems though - the Gall-Peters squishes vertically everything in the far north and south, the Robinson projection or the Sinusoidal one skew things on the East and West sides of the map.

Still, the Robinson doesn't skew too much.

right, but... The « best » way still to be to play on a geodesic sphere.

not for today I think...

[SanadaUjiosan]

If you look at very old maps, many of them had east=up... the north=up convention didn't start until later.

And Trademark, you're a dick.

Very interesting, I recently was wondering what exactly made north "up".

Maybe some of those really old maps, that look kind of like a continent/region but not really would make cool maps.

[MidKnight]

Why is the map oriented the way it is?

I dunno, but I once saw this poster on a wall and found it really interesting.

[TradeMark]

As you can see, most of the ground is at top, so does it make sense to you yet...

[BrainDamage]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurocentri ... _World_Map

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reversed_map

and north is up because of tradition, and self centrism of us Europeans, not out of a real necessity

btw, all world-scale maps are kinda boring because they are all flat ( relative height is very small )

[Pxtl]

If you look at very old maps, many of them had east=up... the north=up convention didn't start until later.

And Trademark, you're a dick.

Very interesting, I recently was wondering what exactly made north "up".

Maybe some of those really old maps, that look kind of like a continent/region but not really would make cool maps.

You mean like this one?



The saddest/funniest part is that so many navigators had no idea that Tierra Del Fuego was so small, so they'd try and navigate the nightmarish Strait of Magellan instead of just going around. Notice on this map Tierra Del Fuego is part of Antarctica.

[SanadaUjiosan]

btw, all world-scale maps are kinda boring because they are all flat ( relative height is very small )

The map that is the topic of this thread has dramatic changes in elevation to mimic the topography of given regions. Relative height, no. Fun height, yes.

[hoijui]

for the old map thing.. i would have though on one of those maps where the whole world is practically europe plus a bit of asia maybe, and flat of course... together with Beheriths new way to have unplayable terrain, one could make a disc map in old style, with the water falling off at the ends (well.. that may be hard to make )

edit: Actually like Peters map there, i would choose that one, for a world map.

[CarRepairer]

btw, all world-scale maps are kinda boring because they are all flat ( relative height is very small )

The map that is the topic of this thread has dramatic changes in elevation to mimic the topography of given regions. Relative height, no. Fun height, yes.

Only bots may cross the Pyrenees.

[SirArtturi]

Eh? i wasnt trolling, you just dont or dont want to understand.

It's you who dont understand...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurocentri ... _World_Map

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reversed_map

and north is up because of tradition, and self centrism of us Europeans, not out of a real necessity

btw, all world-scale maps are kinda boring because they are all flat ( relative height is very small )

Now this is exactly where I was heading to. I think its the eurocentrism that has gotten the hegemonic stance on making maps and viewing the earth. Well, sure it's reasonable to put your country on top so that you dont have to stand your head upside down, but in any other case it's just a perspective issue: How one wants to view the earth/map: eastward, northward, whatever perspective...

The point is, that different view can sometimes lead interesting settings. World really looks interesting from different perspectives...

...maybe also you, Trademark, should sometimes change your view and see things in a new, different perspective. That way you could step back, take some distance and examinate yourself and get rid of your egoistic and idiotic attitude.

[TradeMark]

Dude... i already explained why its top: most ground is at top. Look at the reversed map, theres a lot of empty at top, looks unnatural to make map where most of ground is at bottom.

[AF]

It's not a Eurocentric map, it's a London centric map, grenwich to be precise, GMT line straight down the middle

Still Id rather see localized regions such as a continent or region of a country


Trademark, your logic assumes that the ancient Greeks were aware of the pacific and Indian oceans and the amount of land present there, something you would have trouble justifying until the middle ages, by which time the convention was already there

[Pxtl]

It's not a Eurocentric map, it's a London centric map, grenwich to be precise, GMT line straight down the middle

Still Id rather see localized regions such as a continent or region of a country

The Great Lakes/St. Laurence river system would probably make for a fun mixed naval/land map.