South-up map orientation

Psychological significance

Research suggests that north-south positions on maps have psychological consequences. In general, north is associated with richer people, more expensive real estate, and higher altitude, while south is associated with poorer people, cheaper prices, and lower altitude (the "north-south bias"). When participants were presented with south-up oriented maps, this north-south bias disappeared.

Researchers posit that the observed association between map-position and goodness/badness (north=good; south=bad) is caused by the combination of

• the convention of consistently placing north at the top of maps, and
• a much more general association between vertical position and goodness/badness (up=good, down=bad), which has been documented in numerous contexts (e.g. power/status, profits/prices, affect/emotion, and even the divine).

Common English idioms support the notion that many English speakers conflate or associate north with up and south with down (e.g. "heading up north", "down south", Down Under), a conflation that can only be understood as learned by repeated exposure to a particular map-orientation convention (i.e. north put at the top of maps). Related idioms used in popular song lyrics provide further evidence for the pervasiveness of "north-south bias" among English speakers, in particular with regard to wealth. Examples include using "Uptown" to mean "high class or rich" (as in "Uptown Girl" by Billy Joel), or using "Downtown" to convey lower socioeconomic status (as in "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown" by Jim Croce).

Cultural diversity education

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.

Political use

The history of south-up map orientation as political statement can be traced back to the early 1900s. In 1943, Joaquín Torres García, a Uruguayan modernist painter, created one of the first maps to make a political statement related to north-south map positions entitled "América Invertida". "Torres-García placed the South Pole at the top of the earth, thereby suggesting a visual affirmation of the importance of the (South American) continent."

McArthur's Universal Corrective Map of the World

In 1979, twenty-one year old Australian Stuart McArthur published "McArthur's Universal Corrective Map of the World". An inset on this map explains that he sought to confront "the perpetual onslaught of 'Down Under' jokes: implications from northern nations that the height of a country's prestige is determined by its equivalent spatial location on a conventional map of the world". He had been drawing a map placing Australia at the visual centre of the page since he was 12 years old. At age 15, he was taunted as coming from Down Under as an exchange student. These experiences encouraged him to "correct" the world's map by placing Australia at the top.

In popular culture

South-up maps are commonly available as novelties or sociopolitical statements in southern hemisphere locales, particularly Australia. A south-up oriented world map appears in episode "Somebody's Going to Emergency, Somebody's Going to Jail" of The West Wing, and issues of cultural bias are discussed in relation to it. The cartoon strip Mafalda by Argentine cartoonist Quino once posed the question "Why are we down?" American cartoonist Leo Cullum published a cartoon in The New Yorker titled, "Happy penguin looking at upside-down globe; Antarctica is on top" (April 20, 1992).

The computer strategy game Neocolonialism developed by Esther Alter uses a south-up map, with the developer stating it is intended to "evoke discomfort" and to "exemplify the north-south dichotomy of the world, wherein the southern hemisphere is generally poorer than the northern hemisphere."

Notes

Sources

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