Did you ever wonder why the big N is put at the top of our maps? That is, why North is up? That actually goes back to the Egyptians, to the mathematician Ptolemy. He put North at the top of his maps, probably because most of the landmarks he knew were in the Northern Hemisphere.
In the Middle Ages, many maps put East at the top. That’s why the term “orient” is used to describe positioning something according to the points of the compass.
It’s interesting how the “orientation” of a map can affect our views. Have you ever seen an upside down map? It definitely gives you a different view on the world.
Others have noted a different effect that our standard maps have on us. The most used view of the world is the Mercator Projection. NASA describes the Mercator Projection this way:
A Mercator projection is a mathematical method of showing a map of the globe on a flat surface. This projection was developed in 1568 by Gerhardus Mercator a Flemish geographer, mathematician, and cartographer. Before this time, navigation charts used by sailors did not correctly account for the recently proven fact that the world was round. Mercator’s equations allowed cartographers (map-makers) to produce charts from which sailors could easily navigate. MercatorÂ’s projection preserves exactly what sailors needed — shapes and directions; they were very willing to accept the size distortion.
The problem, as far as our view of the world goes, is that the Mercator Projection distorts the relative size of objects. Objects near the equator are compressed. Objects far from the equator are stretched. On many maps, for example, Greenland looks to be almost the size of South America; it’s actually only about 1/4 the size.
Gall-Peters projection
Because most of the land masses in the Southern Hemisphere are nearer the equator, we may think that these lands are much smaller than they really are. Something that can help, only for the purposes of comparing land mass, are equal-area projections. One that was popular in the late 20th century was the Galls-Peter projection. Many cartographers completely reject this map, but for the purposes of comparison, it is interesting.
Do you have any other tips for helping us get oriented?
There’s a great episode in the first couple of seasons of The West Wing where one of the subplots deals with how Eurocentric the Mercator projection is, and how small it makes Africa and Asia look in comparison.
On orientation, the Christian needs a steady Gospel diet to keep oriented in ultimate reality. A steady diet of Scripture and worship as well, but the Gospels are especially important.