Upside Down World Wall Map - 33.25" x 23.5" Laminated

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The 'magnetic north' shown in the compass, and the understanding that the earth spins on an axis that points to the north, were the main factors that influenced the drawing of maps with the north on top," says Dr Jayasuriya. You'll always get distortions when mapping a sphere onto a two-dimensional space and so no map is strictly accurate. However, the popular Mercator world map distorts shapes and sizes as you move away from the equator. Technically speaking, even referring to the earth with words like "up" or "down" or comparing places with words "above" or "below" is flawed, considering that the earth is a spherical body (it's actually slightly "fatter" at the equator) and flying through 3 dimensional space with no reference of up or down. Imagine you are an alien equivalent of Sir David Attenborough and have traveled from the far distant future to study this fascinating time and place in human history. Note: I would have preferred to show you google maps upside down but it was easier to achieve using OpenStreetMap. Google remains a north-hemisphere centric company.

Monmonier, Mark (2004), Rhumb Lines and Map Wars: A Social History of the Mercator Projection, University of Chicago Press. . In the 15th century, Europe became the centre of map-making, so the north on top convention was reinforced. It also marked a great European expansion of global navigation, hence Mercator's rise in popularity. Which world map is most accurate? De Armendi, Nicole (2009), "The Map as Political Agent: Destabilising the North-South Model and Redefining Identity in Twentieth-Century Latin American Art" (PDF), St Andrews Journal of Art History and Museum Studies: 5–17, archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-04-19 , retrieved 2016-01-25 . More practically, seeing the world from this upside down view point is almost like seeing the world for the first time. Geographic features of places and comparisons now can be done with a fresh perspective. When we always view something the same way, sometimes obvious features just get tuned out. It's not surprising that viewing the earth will expose geographic features that you've probably never even noticed before.

So much of what your brain does is unconscious and automatic. It’s only when forced into an unusual circumstance that we become aware of those automatic associations. So you see the convention of drawing the world map with the northern-hemisphere up really does put the north in the good psychological zone and the south in the bad psychological zone. Viewing the map this way, as a non-eurocentric map, meant the great mighty continents of Africa and South America took center stage instead of being part of the supporting cast.

Pay extra attention to your current surroundings, look with the eyes of a painter or a photographer, what interesting angles can you find?

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Cultural diversity and media literacy educators use south-up oriented world maps to help students viscerally experience the frequently disorienting effect of seeing something familiar from a different perspective. Having students consider the privileged position given to the Northern hemisphere (especially Europe and North America) on most world maps can help students confront their more general potential for culturally biased perceptions. [5] The Tabula Rogeriana, drawn by al-Idrisi for Roger II of Sicily in 1154, is a south-up map and one of the most advanced maps of the pre-modern world. History of south-up oriented maps as political statements [ edit ] América Invertida, drawn in 1943, by Joaquín Torres García. Russia...is still huge. The reason it might look bigger is simply that we've grown so accustomed to its size when viewing conventional maps, that we simply tune it out. Seeing the world "upside down" is almost like looking at the world for the first time, in which case the biggest country (by far) is sure to be immediately noticed. Exhibited in “Journeys of the Imagination,” at the Boston Public Library, Boston, MA, April - August 2006. MB (BRL)

Perhaps your first impression of this reversed map is that it's wrong...Or you may immediately wonder why you haven't viewed this before...Or you may wonder what the reasoning is for North typically being at the top. The south up world map reminds us that a large part of how we view the map and by extension the world is unconscious and automatic. There is no good reason that the northern hemisphere is usually at the top and the southern hemisphere is at the bottom of maps. It’s just convention. Meier, Brian P.; Moller, Arlen C.; Chen, Julie J.; Riemer-Peltz, Miles (2011), "Spatial Metaphor and Real Estate: North-South Location Biases Housing Preference", Social Psychological and Personality Science, 2 (5): 547–553, doi: 10.1177/1948550611401042, S2CID 144903106 . If nothing else, it’s a sure-fire way to make the world seem fresh, and unexplored, once more. With so few earthbound discoveries left for our generation to make, all we can do is – to paraphrase Marcel Proust – look again at the world we’ve got, but this time, through different eyes.However, the issue of "up" and "down" does become an issue when viewing the surface of the earth projected onto a flat piece of paper (a map). And the effect of the orientation of a map is more significant than you might realize.

Our pre-pasted wallpaper from HP needs no additional adhesive and is so simple to install that you won't need to pay for a commercial decorator to do it for you (although we have fitters available should you wish - call us on 01993 880 939 to discuss). Go ahead and zoom in and look for yourself! I’m not making this stuff up! Vacation At Home By Adopting A Different Perspective

History of Map Orientation

Joaquin Torres Garcia, an Uraguayan painter who wanted to make a political point about South America, came up with the rarer south-on-top projection in the early 20th century.