Shouldn't the South Pole be on top?

Another great topic on TT!

Why is earth always depicted with the north on top? When something falls it`s going south so south is always in front (you dont drive backwards), thus south is forward.

And lets give the Aussies a break and let them on top for once.

It's not always on top. I have an Australian map with the south at the top.
It's like why does the Atlantic always have to be in the middle, why can't it be the Pacific.
It doesn't and it can.

And to think that this is my longest post for about a week.

Guess you've been spending too much time reading this web site

thats a great web site just think London UP NORTH and Manchester darn sarf

The old Egyptian word for "south" means "upstream".
*random knowledge I never thought I would be able to apply*

reminds of a recent conversation with a Canuck (who shall remain nameless) who was talking about the "bottom states" (or was it "lower states"?) and meant the US states bordering Canada rather than the most southern states. Makes sense if you look towards the US from Canada and see the southern states as the top and the northern ones as the bottom.

It can happen...

Mississippi in the deep north just doesn’t have that ring to it

Lower Bavaria is in the north of Bavaria, but called lower because it is not up in the mountains.

yep, in Bavaria Ober- and Nieder- relate to the proximity to the Alps. In other places they relate to whether they are upstream or downstream, thus Niederkassel is downstream from Oberkassel (in Düsseldorf) and Niederrhein versus Oberrhein.

sounds logical(head hurts).

like this ??

Ui, that'd be interesting. Which two spots along the equator would then become the poles?

More specifically, I think it refers to the height above sea level, i.e. Oberbayern (Upper Bavaria) is around 500 metres above sea level, whereas Niederbayern (Lower Bavaria) can be as low as 300 metres.

In New Zealand I bought a map that had NZ in roughly the same location as where the UK is on a European map of the world. On a European map, Europe is in the middle with the Americas to the west and Asia to the right. If I recall correctly, American maps often put the Americas in the middle with Europe on the right and Asia on the left.

Incidentally, it's not only Australia that's hard done by normal maps. Because the earth is round but a map is flat, the countries around the equator get squashed and so look smaller than they actually are.

Maybe Ethiopia can be the north pole, so stop sending water and food and start sending fur coats and heaters.

"Top" is "North" simply by convention.

I wonder what a world map would have looked like had the Chinese explored as much as the Europeans had...

The earth isn't a proper sphere – it flattens at the poles. So for this and other reasons, the poles definitely have to be the poles. It's only which one goes on top that is open to question.

I wouldn't be absolutely certain that this is always the case. Schleißheim and Oberschleißheim have the same elevation of ca. 485m above sea level.

No, can't happen, then I can no longer say

America- Canada's pants

or
We are bigger, we're on top, they are so our bitch (refering to Canada/US relations).

Er, um... I see this thread topic heading south.

Now you've got me confused: Würzburg, capital of Unterfranken, or Lower Franconia, is 177m above sea level; Bayreuth, capital of Oberfranken, or Upper Franconia, is 304m above sea level. Fine, your theory works up to now.
But Ansbach, capital of Mittelfranken, or Middle Franconia, is 405m above sea level!

If by Schleißheim you mean Airfield Schleißheim, it's 486m above sea level. There is no such place as Schleißheim.
Oberschleißheim is 483m above sea level.
Unterschleißheim is 473m above sea level.
So the airfield should be Überoberschleißheim.

To STB´s comment about countries around the equator being squashed on maps: don´t they usually make world maps that are flat to look like globes that have been cut apart, e.g. with triangular spaces at the north and south to make up for the globe shape?