Why is North up?
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- Опубліковано 9 лип 2023
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Why is north up? Has north always been up? What used to be up before north was up? Does it matter if a direction other than north is up? And have you ever been on a year five geography trip where you got lost in the woods and wet yourself in front of Mr. Dugdale?
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It's good to learn, and here are three things we've now learned:
- Tolkein did make a map without North at the top. He's more imaginative than we gave him credit for.
- Lower Egypt is named for being in the lowlands. This is the sort of mistake we consider *embarrassing*.
- Orientated isn't a word. It's oriented. Which sounds worse, but is actually correct. I blame the fact we were incredibly young when we said that.
Thank you for watching, and do stop being cleverer than us.
Orientated is a valid variant of oriented in British English, it's only incorrect in American English. You've got the OED and several other dictionaries to back you up on it too
@@emmalucas4177 yaaaassssss!
I don't think anything you said about Egypt was technically incorrect. Water will naturally from from highlands to lowlands. So the South to North path of the Nile does indeed explain the terms Upper and Lower Egypt.
Also as @emmalucas4177 mentioned, "orientated" is definitely correct in British English.
WHEN IS THE MARK SHOW COMING MARK I BEEN WAITING SINCE 2011 !!!
@@paulbobbo5022 But we've been in the Mark Show the WHOLE WHILE...
On the topic of Tolkien, he DID actually play around with orientation. Dwarves put East up on their maps (like on Thror's map that Thorin follows in The Hobbit). Also, the fact that the Elvish words for north and south are related to the words for right and left respectively strongly implies that Elves and other peoples influenced by them usually drew maps with West upwards.
Tolkien would likely have said that he put north at the top on his maps of Middle-earth to simplify for the readers (especially since Middle-earth is supposed to be our world in a bygone age)...
Thanks! I was going to post a comment correcting the video because the map in The Hobbit has east at the top ("East lie the Iron Hills where is Dain" - arrow points up). But you know it in far more detail than I remembered!
... Unless they included that comment about Tolkien as geek bait to draw out people to correct it?
It makes sense that elves would put west at the top, because the undying lands were to the west, but I wonder if there’s a specific reason dwarves put east at the top. Since their major settlements are underground I don’t think the sun would have a huge impact on their mapmaking.
Came here to say this. He also translated a lot of the names to 'English' or to be more familiar to English speakers, so it would make sense if he translated the maps too
crazy
I was about to leave a comment. Thanks for pointing this out
Actually, Tolkien could and did imagine a different orientation. In his legendarium, maps produced by Elves or allied peoples were oriented towards the west. However, they were printed in northern orientation for the convenience of readers.
The Dwarven map of the lonely mountain is printed oriented to the east too!
@@calebpainemusicYeah, because Dwarves are not Elves and The Hobbit originally was no part of the Legendarium.
Did that include the early Moriquendi, or do we just not get much talk of cartography before the Noldor influence pointed everything towards Aman?
@@Archgeek0 I'm not aware of any Moriquendi maps.
misread that as Elvis
My grandfather was a meteorologist and went on a couple expeditions to Antartica. Every map he has hangs with the south to the top. He also has a habit of remounting globes upside down, even those in the library at his college.
The globe has no up or down.
The library thing, that sounds like straight-face trolling 😂 He sounds like an interesting man
That's cool :)
I'm thinking about the east map though & realising that hanging it that way would create a long thin rectangle, instead of a wide one, which makes me think about your grandfather & did he leave Antactica cut off the way it is in paps too? Or did he try to extend the maps into squares, so as to properly show Antarctica?
@@iamnormal8648 that's right, so why do ones on stands always seem to be pinned to spin with north at the top?
Good man.
1:05 Jay really showed a clip from an old episode and expected no one to notice.
I've actually got a £5 bet with Mark that no one would notice. In 11 minutes, three people have noticed.
he legit fooled me. Stupid attention spa-LOOK A BUTTERFLY
Aaah
@@JayForeman You just lost 5 pounds.
@@JayForeman "No one" is a bit of a silly gamble when millions of people are going to watch this lol.
It is nice seeing references to other episodes though since things are bound to overlap eventually.
Map Men finally returns after almost 2 years. Excited to see the future episodes, they’re all amazing!
In 2025?
Two years? Jay had done more than that.
It hasn't really been that long has it? [checks when last Map Men was posted]....oh. Good grief.
ITS BEEN THAT LONG!?
It has been so long??? 😮
I've very often wondered why in every single movie involving aliens approaching planet Earth, the planet is always oriented in a north-up fashion. Like, why couldn't an alien spacecraft approach us from another of the possible 359 degrees??
I always rather fancied the idea that aliens from billions of light years away saw earth only 70 million years ago in the age of dinosaurs. They stayed their invasion until they had built up enough fire power, only to arrive on earth and meet the ancestors of those dinosaurs, penguins, on what they perceive as the closest continent, antarctica. Theyre so overcome with adoration for the dominant earthlings of this continent, they make trades of resources with the penguin leaders and try to train them in warfare. By the time they catch wind of the human populace, a linguistic alliance has formed between the aliens and a new face of cyber penguins, intent on taking back their home for dinosaur kind.
Since they usually also pass a bunch of planets and the Moon on the way in, it suggests they approach Earth within the orbital plane. Maybe they need to use the gravitational slingshot effect for some reason. Still, that doesn't explain why it's not south-up sometimes.
Most people on planet earth live on the north side of the planet.....
@@mikkelbreiler8916 And? How does that explain why most aliens approach with Earth in a north-up orientation from their perspective?
@@mykalimba Because if you plan to land on the northern hemisphere, it's logical to turn around, so when you get closer you don't land your ship bottom side up, plus the gravity will be pulling the right way as well.
Fun fact, a common way to navigate and give directions in Hawaii (on land at least) is mauka and makai, or mountains and ocean. So each island has their own little North Pole that people navigate around.
As for left and right, people typically refer to landmarks like hills or regions. It’s not the east or west side of the field, it’s Diamond Head or Ewa.
Edit: additional fun fact: this has made me absolutely useless at navigating anywhere without a visible mountain or grid system. I regularly get lost in suburbs because my mental north is governed by changes in elevation.
to be fair we do the same thing in Barcelona, "up" is the mountains, and "down" is the sea... but the sea is roughly 160 degrees down, and the mountain is 340 degrees up, so not quite north or south but northnorthwest and southsoutheast. I guess the do it for most places where there are to very clear landmarks at the top or bottom.
I like how early maps are the blobby ones we draw off the top of our head lol
Those map took lifetimes to draw. 😅 I remember seeing a video about some dude asked to draw a map of French, took several generations.
@@ToneyCrimsonthat was a map men episode!
As I recall, the main purpose of those maps were to draw correct coastlines to make navigation easier, rather than getting the proportions right.
@@ToneyCrimson france, french is the name of the people living in france
@@greenytoaster Or even France and French. Yes it's pedantic to point out the correct capitalisation of counties and populations. But since _you_ are trying to correct someone, at least get it right.
I am a Diagnostic Imager and we are trained to flip chest radiographs upside down to spot rib fractures. It really does help to look at the image with new eyes and spot hidden lesions!
very common in visual arts to flip your work regularly as well
UA-camr claims to be something. That's nothing new! I'm an astronaut.
@@CooManTunes You have a terminal case of the internet friend, it is okay to give people the benefit of the doubt sometimes. They arent even boasting about it
@@CooManTunes"Diagnostic imager" is a rather odd one to pull out of the ass when "artist" would have been far easier. I prescribe you touching grass, to be taken in 10 minute doses until symptoms subside.
@@deathwindae8277 He said 'I'm a diagnostic imager'. That's boasting. Nobody asked him. He should've said 'Diagnostic imagers are trained to...', instead of leading with a claim about his own supposed achievements.
In Finnish, the root word for "north" ("pohjoinen") is "bottom" ("pohja"), like the bottom of a vessel. As structures were erected with the doorway facing south and the Sun, thus the "bottom" of the structure (aka. the part opposite of the opening) was facing north.
you finns are kinda crazy and shouldn't be listened to
is it because otherwise the door gets frozen shut?
maybe it's because our ancestors lived in earth houses? The northern part was probably dug deeper, which would reduce the need for construction materials for the entire construction.
As a Geography teacher, I'm thrilled to see another video! Map Men, along with Geography Now, is one of my most commonly-used video series to supplement the information I teach!
Same!
@@MyName42 Do you both get your jackets with elbow pads from the same shop?
Nice! I always remember my geography and history teachers when watching Map Men. They used to supplement our materials with fun insights that made me appreciate the subjects and remember them much better. Hopefully your students feel the same
Interesting correction, Tolkien DID actually make at least one map with East at the top: Thorin’s map in The Hobbit. Though it is meant to be handed down from his ancestors, so it could be another case of older maps simply being different
that is incredible attention to detail if it was intentional
And to add: while Men and (apparently) Dwarves used to have the East at the top, Elves had the West at the top. The Two Trees were the light before the sun and used to be in Valinor, west of Middle Earth. In Quenya (High-Elvish), 'formen' means North and 'forya means right. Likewise, 'hyarmen' means South and 'hyarma' means left.
This
I posted this in another comment:
0:32 "not even j.r.r. Tolkien could imagine an alternative way to ORIENT middle earth", and as said later (1:05), orientated means east to the top! I believe it's a Map Pun!
Beat me to it.
i love mapmen. you guys are like a modern monty python skit show combined with geography. can’t wait till the next one!
I knew there was an ad, but I kept on watching for the plot
... men
i describe most british people as “modern monty python”
Modernty Snakemap
The thumbnail with the upside down UK just reminds me of how Pokémon's in-universe equivalent to the United Kingdom, the Galar region, has a map shape inspired by the UK's but inverted, so the game can have the player go north from the protagonist's unsubtly Scottish-inspired home in the south
The delivery of "It's because of the rock type," was so perfect that I lack the words. Top-notch.
can somebody explain the joke
@@guicho271828 I think @x--. thinks it was a Pokémon joke, but I'm just guessing. I don't think there was an intended joke there at all.
Fun fact:
In the past, Chinese people preferred to build houses with their front door facing south, so the North is literally the "back" of the house.
The character for "back" (北) was then used to mean "North" as well.
So that's why "North" in Chinese languages is written 北. It was originally depicting two people turning their back to each other!
And the Chinese character of "back" 背 literally has its back facing the north (top).
This is also the reason why all traditional Chinese(and Japanese, Korean, etc) houses face south
@@lamlam-bw7ev yes! After the meaning “North” took over the original character, a new character was created for the meaning “back” 背.
This character consists of two part: the original character 北 plus the “flesh” character 肉(to signify that it means the body part).
Back capital
@@avaevathornton9851 Backjing
When one of my college professors published a book on military history, he specifically commissioned the maps to not have north at the top, so that readers would be forced to actually look at the terrain and other features, rather than just thinking "oh, yeah, that's a map of Western Europe."
That's interesting. If it's alright, would you mind sharing the title of the book? Would like to see the map for myself.
@@hairglowingkyle4572 Unfortunately, I don't remember, and a quick search now cannot find it. I may, in fact, be misremembering, and it was one of the the assigned texts, or something one of his own professors had written.
@@martinpaulsen1592 D: you promised a cool book and failed to deliver. May you never find the names of media you like. 👿
@@Al-.-ex @martinpaulsen1592 yeah 😠😠😠😠
@@Al-.-exsettle down
I remember taking a course in ancient civilizations in ninth grade, and one of the first things the teacher tried to do was to untrain us from using the words "up" and "down" while studying maps. She was not entirely successful, but it was interesting playing a kind of Where's Waldo with the maps oriented in unfamiliar directions.
I'm guessing that Waldo is Wally's American cousin! (?)
I struggled with this when translating an Aboriginal language that only used geographical directions (cardinal and river drainage). I kept thinking “north and up” was like and further north not vertically up as in climbing a hill.
Oddly, the first time I can remember thinking about map orientation was when maps were added to Minecraft. I had always used the sunrise to orient myself, and essentially treated “east” as “north”, but then when the maps were added to the game, suddenly it was east again and I have to change how I thought about directions in the game.
That said, whichever way you do it, i do think it’s important to try to orient maps in the same direction, because it makes for a consistent tool. I don’t want maps to help me change my world view - I want it to help me locate and analyze data.
Same thing happened to me. It's also interesting to note that, actually, originally the Minecraft sun did technically (in the code), and canonically (according to Notch) rise in the North. This was even true for a time after maps were originally added to the game, which made the top of the map where the run rose. It was only later that they changed the code to be consistent with traditional real-world directions, thus "correcting" the in game maps. Presumably the addition of maps was the only thing that made this discrepancy actually noticeable by most players, and it was changed for ease of communication.
Some sources say that the original 90-degree-rotated orientation was a bug, though personally I'm more inclined to believe that Notch simply either didn't care or think to define directions at all (after all they were only defined by numerical x and z coordinates), or he just originally implemented the direction of the sky's rotation aligned to what he considered to be the canonical "up" and "down" directions of the top-down view, for simplicity's sake, which would make the sun rise in either the "North" or "South".
That explains the weird coordinate system where positive z is actually south.
@@mmseng2 It makes sense, similar to the Ender’s Game mantra of “the enemy’s gate is down”.
Oooohh that's a really interesting example!
One thing though: nobody is suggesting that the purpose of maps is to help you change your worldview. The point is that you should consider how the way data is presented has ALREADY played into the way we all look at the world around us. I mean it's obviously not something we can ever "fix", as all data (except maybe raw data, and sometimes even still then) will favor one interpretation over another, despite that interpretation not necessarily being any more "correct". It's not really important that one uses non-north-oriented maps, but it _is_ important that we are aware of how always looking at things in the exact same way can (and does) subconsciously influence our perception of the world around us :)
@@jeremypnet I don't think it does? A lot of games are like that.
I want to say most, even. I could be wrong on that
I really do enjoy how this series combines the whimsy of a children's show with a stark, mature understanding of the world and its issues and this episode is absolutely no different. Here's to another grand batch of Map Men!
A heart throbbing adventure!
I enjoy how this series combines maps and men.
Bland batch. More like.
koishi
Our Australian geography teacher (in the UK) had a poster of an upside down map of the world on the wall. He tried to convince us that was genuinely how Australians did their maps and there it was "correct" as far as he was concerned. He also had a clock that ran anti-clockwise.
defo fucking with you all lol
I had an Australian teacher in history sixth form and used to fuck with some of the girls who didn't know much about Australia by feeding them obvious lies then mentioning stuff like road trains, when they didn't believe me about either i would get the teacher to confirm it was true lmao
And he isn't wrong.
"Clockwise" simply is comes from the direction shadows travelled on sundials in the northern hemisphere. In Australia this would naturally be the other way around.
Legendary
Hold on, I also went to school in the UK, and had an Australian geography teacher with an upside down map on his wall.
I’m a linguistics student and something I struggled with while studying Australian aboriginal languages was the ingrained concept of “up” as a lateral direction. The language I was studying (Bilinarra) used up only for verticality. For directions they use geographic directions only. No left or right. They use both cardinal directions and river drainage directions eg upstream/downstream.
Dictionary writers of English actually found it's remarkably difficult to define "left" or "right", and the Oxford English Dictionary ultimately went with this (for "left"): "that side of the human body which is to the west when a person is facing north" (handedness is also mentioned). It's fascinating how something that seems like a universal fact perhaps isn't as clear-cut (and certainly isn't as innate) as we tend to think.
@@andrewgwilliam4831 when I was studying this I found out that front/back distinction is a lot more innate than left/right. That's attributed to front and back being a lot more asymmetrical on the human body. Also, left/right distinction is associated with western schooling and may be due to left to right reading and/or being able to tell letters and numbers apart relying on that distincion. It certainly gives you a wake up call to how much of your worldview is biased by your perspective
Another example why they were conquered so easily.
@@nath-wp7xp because they're better at navigation? doesn't really make much sense there buddy
@@geministargazer9830 no it’s because the aborigines are useless
I don't know how Egiptians drew their maps but 'Lower' Egipt comes from it being closer to the sea level and 'Upper' Egipt from being at higher elevation. And its not the only place in the world that does that.
Only channel where I don't even skip the sponsor break. You two are legends, I look forward to another fantastic production!
Also, when you look at the map of the British Isles upside-down, Ireland actually looks like a harp!
Ryan George also have amazing sponsor sections.
*You three - don't forget dad.
“Only after the break.” UA-cam ads play.
@@soundscape26 His own Adstronaut bits are good, but I saw one of his Pitch Meetings reposted by Screen Rant not too long ago, and they stuck a super intrusive ad right in the middle of it and it really sucked.
Nooooo, the episode finished before I finished my dinner. More Mapmen episodes needed asap! Great work guys.
SAME HERE! ate half my sandwich looking at the wall 🤣🤣
I re-orientated my sandwich east west and the tomato fell out.
@@tysonhodgson8523 should've put yourself facing east west to catch it
This and Corridor Crew are premium channels to eat to.
@@niCop411 My moral compass has never pointed me in the right direction
8:22 He died because he was no longer the cameraman.
?? Camera men cant die, he's just passed out.
This is the only youtube channel where I actively enjoy the sponsor segment as much as the video itself. Some other channels, the transition is seamless but once that's done I skip, but MapMen ads are always worth watching all the way through. I'll definitely be keeping Incogni in mind.
This reminds me of why artists "flip the canvas". It's to take a break from looking at the picture for too long and by seeing it from a different perspective, we can spot mistakes we never noticed when working on it.
This is also why people using Photoshop or something similar often mirror the image while working on it
Whoa it looks much better with the canvas wrapped away from the viewer!
@@minor_edit That's not how it works lol. I'm talking about digital artists who mirror the canvas vertically. Plus we put it back. Not sure why you thought artists actually present their artwork the wrong side up.
@@andrejmarkusov5500 I think he (epicene, because it just doesn't feel right to me to use they in this specific instance) meant that as a joke, not showing the viewer the actual artwork
@@tuluppampam flipping the image also makes drawing much easier, no matter how good you are you'll always prefer drawing curve bent one way over the other
Here in Bogotá, Colombia, all the maps of the city, including the public transport map put east at the top, because usually people use the eastern hills (In particular the Monserrate Hill with its church on its summit) as a reference. The city grid is also more or less oriented with the north-south streets parallel to the eastern hills.
I was thinking exactly the same!
I was up in the Canadian Artic this winter, up in the archipelago and was surprised by all the atypical map projections in use. It's pretty understandable given how badly the Mercator projection breaks down that far north. The most common projection in use put the North Pole at lower centre of the map, sometimes below the lower edge, and arranged everything in a way that put not only North but also East and West at the bottom of the map, with every other edge being south. It's weird to think about because we're so used to the Mercator, and makes it seem like everything is in a big arc, but then you realize it's just how it would look if you sliced off the top of a globe and flattened it out. It really opens your mind to different ways of looking at the world.
That is an amazing perspective, thanks for sharing. I theoreticly knew that on a map with nort pole in the center, all directions (left, right, up and down) would be south. But I never imagined such a map you described, with north, east and west pointing down and south on the rest three directions, with parallels forming arcs.
2:06 Fun fact: something similar can also be found in Germany, where the Land (federal state) of Lower Saxony is situated today in an upper position than the Länder of Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt: this was due to the flow of rivers in the region from the interior towards the North and Baltic Seas
Correction about Tolkien, while many of the maps had north to the top, this wasn't due to a lack of imagination. In fact the dwarfs used east for the top of their maps! (At least with the only dwarf made map we've seen, Thror's map)
East being historically "up" makes perfect sense - if you're not navigating by the North star, then you're probably navigating by the sun, which will be in the East in the morning when you start your journey! Something I've never thought to question, but has a very interesting answer.
In Biblical Hebrew the word for East קדימה also means forward, making the connection obvious.
@@ascoopamanuka ...the Earth is not flat lmao
There were also religious reasons for it. Medieval Christians obviously considered Jerusalem the most important place in the world, and most of them living in Europe lived to the west of it so by placing east at the top you could have Jerusalem at the top of your map. It also worked out because Medieval Christians weren't really aware of much of the world beyond the Mediterranean.
0:34 - It's intersting, because the map of the dwarves in The Hobbit has a diferent position to the North.
As always, a pleasure!
For us Mongols, we have always historically associated 'south' with being 'in-front' as we'd face the entrances to our Gers (Mongol round, felt homes) as the arctic winds blew 'down' from behind, thus shielding ourselves from the 'northerly' winds.
So... You are the original Ger-mans?!🤯
And all the lands ripe for pillaging were in that direction maybe? 😅
When the world needed them the most, they came back and taught us some geography. Seriously, you guys are some of the most original content creators out there!
It is amazing the sheer effort put into all of Jay's videos. He is really underrated
I love how Jay posing as an astronaut started choking after he took the photo because the cameraman never dies
The process of "flipping maps the wrong way round to see things you haven't before" is a lot like the classic digital art advice "flip the canvas!" Because it makes you way more aware of any wonkyness or errors you hadn't noticed because your eyes had got so used to the peice you're working on.
"classic digital..." oh boy, do i feel old - i used to flip actual canvases on actual easels 🙂
@mm-qd1ho I suppose it's just classic art advice then! I've just mostly heard it in terms of digital art where you can just mirror everything instantly.
Jay, I've been watching you for years (back when there were only 3 Unfinished London episodes and before Map Men even existed) and I just wanted to again thank you for the consistently outstanding entertainment throughout the years. You have always been the UA-camr I revisit and re-binge and you have provided so much joy and entertainment through my life, it's unreal. I'm constantly making references to jokes in your videos on a day-to-day basis with all my friends. Your work has had a phenomenal impact on my life and I am so glad whenever I see a new batch of episodes being produced. Thank you so so much, and don't ever stop. Absolutely top class UA-cam content.
It's UA-cam, yous imp. Wow. Nothing admirable about UA-camr uploading videos.
@CooManTunes you will never amount to anything with that attitude
@@ff-qf1th Speaking from experience?
@@CooManTunes prat
Thanks so much Liam. Glad to be of service. :)
A UA-cam ad played literally right after you said "except these ones coming after the break" @3:49 and I was genuinely impressed. Then subsequently depressed when I realised that wasn't the actual break 😂
I like the use of the C'était un rendez-vous @6:10
Another Map Men! 🎉
Men men men men men men men
Jay🎉🎉
@@BenabikMen
Men men men me men...
No shit
If you go skiing, the trail maps usually ignore north (and the concept of scale distances) entirely. The summit is at the top of the map, the base lodge is at the bottom, and the everything is sized to make trail names readable and connections understandable, more than accurately showing the distance between points.
Sound like it shares some design ideas with the tube map :)
@@hanswoast7 I was about to say _exactly_ the same thing, but I was apparently 1 minute too slow!
This also often leads the trouble where you see a lot of people assume that a slope is shorter or less steep then it is - after all if it is a longer line it must be less steep and longer :P
Yeah. They said that in the video. It's common.
Similar to the "You Are Here" maps. I've seen a lot of park maps oriented on the waterfront. In the case of skiing understanding of local topography relationships would be the most important information.
Isn’t the importance of North being ‘up’ more so related to compasses always pointing north? Makes it easier for exploration and reading maps. Cause even if a map is showing East as ‘up’, you look at a compass pointing North and rotate your map to match, giving you better orientation.
Or maybe, “oriention” 😁
SO happy there’s a new video/episode! Pretty sure I’ve watched all the others, and they’re all very interesting.
A french politican, who was born in Tanger, Morocco and (way later) elected in Marseille, just above the mediterranean sea, put a map of the mediterranean sea with the west on top in his office, and showed it to his UA-cam followers saying "This is meant to change your point of view and demonstrate that Africa is not the feet bathtub of Europe". This was the first time I really had to think about the symbolics of north being on top, and it certainly has a real effect on perception
I've just realized that the Arabic word for North is 'Shamal' which means left, and the word for South is 'Janoob' which means side. Also, these words are used to connote directions in modern Arabic, while classical Arabic communicated cardinal directions almost exclusively via East and West. The words used for East (Mashriq) & West (Maghrib) literally mean 'place of sun rising' and 'place of sun setting.' Fascinating.
I was thinking about that, but I learned yasaar as left (msa) :P.
isn't lest "smal", not "shamal"? of course these words have the same origin..
@@shahardewaka shamaal for modern standard arabic iirc.
Oh that’s why North Africa is called the Maghreb
In Polish, east is wschód which means "rise", west is zachód which means "set", north is północ which literally translates to "half-night", and south is południe which roughly translates as "half-day".
The order in which I wrote them is also the conventional order in which they are called out, but I'm not sure if that has any significance.
The names for east and west always made intuitive sense, but I could never understand where the names for north and south came from, until I got to 1:23 in the video explaining how north was associated with darkness.
6:38 ACTUALLY :P the research about clients and supermarkets shows that most people look to the shelves in front of them (middle row) first and that's where you find the most expensive stuff most of the time ; )
Honestly absolutely love your content. Its like its made for me!
Map men is genuinely one of my favorite video series in all of youtube. There's an itch for a charm and sense of humor that only you two guys have been able to scratch. To more map men!
The film footage used as background between 5:50 and 6:21 is 'C'etait un Rendezvous' a roughly 8 minute single take of speeding through Paris by the director Claude Lelouch.
Interesting! Thanks for the comment!
Came for this comment. Thank you!
It really bought a smile of appreciation when I saw that in the background! Must have been one of the first memorable videos I ever saw online ua-cam.com/video/ilR93GwSYEA/v-deo.html
So glad map men is back. Really enjoyed thus episode. Hope you upload more soon.
When Mark said “after the break” an ad played
Fun fact, in Chinese, Japanese, and I believe Korean as well, the cardinal directions are still sorted with east first, then going clockwise with north being last. This reflects in naming conventions: for example, something that runs north-south would be literally named “south-north” in Chinese and Japanese. The official Chinese name for the North-South MRT metro line here in Singapore, for example, literally means “south-north line” (南北线), rather than literally translating the English name (which would make it “北南线” in that case)
This is also reflected in mahjong games, where the four “winds” tiles (which represent the four cardinal directions) are usually ordered as east-south-west-north (東南西北).
Linked Asian fact: I remember reading a book about the warring states period in 16th century Japan, which culminated in a big deciding war between two factions that were invariably described as "Western" and "Eastern" armies. This always confused me since if you look on any map you can see plain as day that Japan is a north/south oriented landmass - and all the eastern armies were from states in the north. Turns out, if you look up any medieval map of Japan, they depict the country lying horizontally on a west/east axis.
We still say east, south, west, north outside of the context of mahjong. In any other order, you will just draw weird stares.
Eat Shredded Wheat? Never!
In korean, it is 동서남북, as in east west south north, so no clockwise here.
Thanks! Now I understand why someone from Northeastern China is called a dongbeiren and not a beidongren!
Thank you both so SO MUCH for teaming up again, and bringing the joy of British geography with humor!
We have missed you and are delighted to see you again!
I second that!
@@hollyw. I'll third that second!
I swear everything I know about British culture and politics comes from youtubers making fun of various parts of Britain.
That's a really great share.
Thank you for your work and acting.
I love how diverse your video segments and props are!!
One of my favorite bits of map trivia is how on maps of mountain ranges where the elevation is shown by shadows, the light source responsible for those shadows comes from the north!
Great bit if trivia (and this has got to be the best place on the entire internet for it)
What, even in the northern hemisphere? :0
that's a fact in Minecraft map items
Well I'm in the southern hemisphere and it's always made sense to me! Never occurred to me that it was weird in the North
@@Meevious yep!
www.codex99.com/cartography/images/everest/everest_chinese_lg.jpg
This is my favorite Map Men episode! Great insights! Hopefully this episode will reach out to as many people as possible!
I'd like to add another few thoughts. Sometimes practicality also dictates things. If you were to spread out a big map on a table or scholar's desk, it is easier to have it be wider instead of taller. If you would put the orient at the top, the maps would have a very weird aspect ratio and you couldn't reach all the way up. Maybe it is also a psychological type of thing, because all the landmass looks more "stable" when North is up.
Have you seen those cool websites that show you how large countries really are compared to each other? Greenland is actually about 3-4x smaller than the US (~3 million km squared vs ~10 million km squared). All maps are distorted in some way in order to fit a 3D world onto a 2D piece of paper (Jay and Mark actually made a video on this, something to do with the Mercator projection?)
The world _is_ a little wider at the equator than the poles, but the difference is only around 20km so I’d imagine it possible to distort the world in a way east or west faces up on the map. Though maybe people didn’t like the idea of the white poles being in their peripheral vision hahaha.
Hmm. Why not square maps?
@@acookie7548 Actually, you are plain wrong :D But you nearly had me 😀
The equator is 40 080 km long and the distance from North to South Pole is 20 030 km, so a map of the world is double wide than high :)
@@Delibro The equator is all the way around the globe, but north to south pole is only half of the way. You'd have to add the distance from the south pole to the north pole to the distance from the north pole to the south pole in order to get a round trip. If we use your numbers that would make it only 20km shorter in the north/south direction at 4060km compared to 4080 in the east/west direction.
@@wzrduck That's what I just wrote ...
How on earth can it look more "stable" to you when most of the mass is at the top? That's the opposite of stable!
Maps are square if everything is shown, but lets go with your desire to omit Antarctica & the Arctic, then South up is the second preferred option & that puts all the mass to the bottom, which would clearly be much more stable & logical in configuration wouldn't it? Especially when you consider that matches with gravity in major tectonic plate movements today eg the fastest moving contenent on the planet is Australia & eventually it's going to slam into the Himalayas the way it's going.
The Australia/Asia centred, South up map is by far the most aesthetic map imo, especially when the oceans are a nice shade of blue. That design fits the art world's "rule of thirds" for creating aesthetically pleasing designs, traditional European & US maps totally betray those rules & put power over aesthetics & quite frankly look ugly when you really look at it objectively
Please NEVER stop making map content with Marc, i love you boys like my own sons
You mean fathers?
@@thedreadpirateblacktooth5551 why would she mean that?
@@sabbywins Oh wait, they are sons! Good grief!
Marc Super Jones? :D
These are map MEN not map BOYS, show some respect!!!
Discword has the best alternative to this: Hubwards (towards the Hub), Rimwards (towards the Rim), Turnwise (the direction that the Disc rotates in), and Widdershins (opposite to Turnwise).
Having north at the top doesn't work for maps of Antarctica, where every direction away from the centre of the map is north, but a quick google image search shows that we have settled on a default orientation here as well, with the long narrow peninsula reaching towards South America going up and to the left. Here it seems that it's the direction of the Prime Meridian that we've decided is up, which I suppose is a choice as good as any, but I have no idea how it came about.
You made me realize something I had never thought about.
I *just* got released from the hospital, and this was a most welcome surprise. I was talking to my hospital room mate all day about Map Men, how great this series is, and how it would surely align with his interests. Before that we discussed geography, wonky border disputes, and fun conflicts for a few hours. Didn't realize it had been so long since the previous Map Men video though. This definitely made my entire week better! Thank you for all the infotainment you provide, and I hope to see more of your videos soon!
There are several more videos you missed, but you won't be able to find them until you wake up from your coma. You have to wake up
@@jrcorsey Luckily nothing that severe. And I'm sure I've watched all of them, multiple times even!
I have a map with south at the top that they sell in New Zealand. It also places New Zealand at the prime meridian, while the UK is tucked away in the bottom corner inviting future map-makers to ignore it and leave it off the map altogether the way New Zealand is frequently left off north-facing maps.
I haven’t seen a map with south as top here in New Zealand. I’ve seen a couple where they put New Zealand in the middle but it’s still always at the bottom with north up. Where do you find one of those maps in New Zealand? I haven’t seen any at the warehouse or Kmart.
Which is why traditionally time starts in New Zealand and the rest of the world follows.
At least it was until countries like Kiribati decided to bend the International Date Line so they were 2 hours ahead of NZ, leading to the odd situation that Baker Island, despite being much further west, is 26 hours behind them.
I remember having a school atlas which had a page showing NZ overlaid as a projection through the earth to our actual Antipode. NZ appeared upside-down in that. In 1996 I visited Spain, and now a small rock sits in my china cabinet which I can point to and tell visitors "That comes from straight through the earth from here." Andalusia. about halfway between Sevilla and Gibraltar.
> New Zealand is frequently left off north-facing maps
What new Zealand? What was wrong with the old one?
/s
@@artyhedgehog it was in Europe :D that's what's wrong with the old one! Plus we were edgy and changed the spelling (zeeland-zealand)
What a wonderfully informative and entertaining video!
This was such an amazing episode!! It gave me a Plethora of different perspectives to add to the essay I'm currently working on!
96k views in 2 hours?? I mean if that's true then that just shows how popular you guys are and I'm super glad you're back. The undisputed kings of sponsored content you didn't let me down today either. Legends.
The servers don’t update fast enough to show the audience the true amount of views. It was actually 200k in 2 hours ☺️
@@jadeforeman131 well I infer from your username you know of what you speak. Congratulations to all of you, you've been missed. Looking forward to more. And when are you getting a bloody sketch show, come on BBC2, get your act together.
@@willyum3920 Right?! Wouldn’t that be nice.
@@jadeforeman131number of views
And now, after 4 hours it's 38k. Has it gone right round and off the clock?
I love how you guys can randomly upload a video after yet another long hiatus and still clear 500k views before 12 hours is out. Easily the best channel on here, and we deserve, no demand, more map men!
All the best guys 👍
Would one a month until November be ok?
@@jadeforeman131 Will it still be map Men or is there a map Ladies in the offing?
@@tonyatthebeach Nah. I think the format works perfectly
LOVE this! Great information, great comedy!
Awesome channel, congrats! Greetings from Brazil!
7:57 a European drawing boundaries in Africa to show what it would look like if Europeans didn't draw boundaries in Africa
Some of my favorite podcasts and channels started to really phone it in on their ad breaks as they got bigger, Love to see that the map men still put effort into making them watchable!
The ad Jay did where he covered his hands in thyme still randomly pops up into my head every now and then.
@@mrcraggleI think that was one of the easiest ads we’ve made. But definitely one of my favourites.
"An item that always points directly away from what you're trying to find, turned out to be exactly as useful as an item that always points towards it". That's from "The Book That Broke The World", and I couldn't help thinking of it when you pointed out that compasses also point South
It's pretty remarkable that this seemingly normal concept has only been around for a few centuries. Before this video I would've just assumed that it was always this way yet apparently most of human history didn't do it the way we do.
Fun fact:
In Welsh, the words for North and South are similar to those for left and right.
This is why in the French series Kaamelott (the prequel to the movie with Sting playing the bad guy) Welsh Percival doesn't know cardinal directions : "They say "North", depending on where you face it changes everything"
There's some Australian langauges and cultures who don't use cardinal directions like up or down at all but rather only orientations like north, south, etc
@@gamermapper Don't they have a north foot / south foot lol
In Polish, east is wschód which means "rise", west is zachód which means "set", north is północ which literally translates to "half-night", and south is południe which roughly translates as "half-day".
The order in which I wrote them is also the conventional order in which they are called out, but I'm not sure if that has any significance.
The names for east and west always made intuitive sense, but I could never understand where the names for north and south came from, until I got to 1:23 in the video explaining how north was associated with darkness.
@@GTAVictor9128 Well it makes sense as in the northern hemisphere the sun is south.
Reminds me of my brother, who thought the port and starboard sides of the ship changed because of the direction. I told him it is like left and right, it changes due to your position, that is why your left becomes your right if you turn around.
Fun fact, most printed maps of Vail, Colorado are "South Up" (because this puts the ski area on the top. I was Creative Director for a mapping company in Colorado (until Google basically put us out of business ... no I'm not bitter) that made the official transit maps for Vail and we would get a couple of complaints a year that we made the map "wrong".
Your videos are always the perfect blend of information and humour.
Seriously mapmen and oversimplified are the only two things I drop whatever I'm doing and what them. Such a treat! Even when it looks simple (which this one didn't) you can see the love and effort they put into making them! I hope we see more
The "corrective" Australian map is actually painted on one of the walls in the Danish royal family's estate. It's in honor of the Australian born crown princess and it was the first time I thought to look at the world (or at least an atlas) in a new way.
It also represents our ambition to convince the Australians to switch Royal families to ours so we control the top of the world regardless of the orientation (since claiming Antarctica is illegal).
@@hedgehog3180 This is going to be my new favorite conspiracy theory.
Interesting! I see that the Danish royalty have _also_ appreciated the mind-bending!
That’s funny, we actually learn about this stuff in school in Argentina. I guessed everyone did at least in the southern hemisphere.
@@agme8045 Yes, we learnt it at school too in Australia.
I live in New Zealand. In a fun twist, if you turn the world map upside down, there's an island that's a very similar shape to New Zealand and very far to the North, and the name of that island is Nova Zemlya, so even when you turn it upside down, NZ ends up at the bottom.
It's ok little bro, no matter where the world puts NZ, you can always count on us Australians to fight fiercely for the right to be the only ones allowed to poke fun at you and steal your talent.
Please. Like there are actually world maps that even include New Zealand.
@@rianfelis3156 Ever since 2001, New Zealand has been officially known (outside of the place itself) as Middle Earth.
@@davidanderson_surrey_bc Personally, I live in Mordor.
And if you don't believe me, I live in a city in Middle Earth with a name that sounds like "orc land" and which was built on the backs of over 50 volcanoes. What would *you* call it?
@@Christopher-Jayden In the name of THIS IS A COMMENT ABOUT MAPS ON A VIDEO ABOUT MAPS, please never do this again.
Thank you and goodbye.
Yeyy!!! I liked the detail of the pre-break video bars in the top corner. :)
Upside down maps look like the land is falling and it's disturbing.
"It's because of the rock type" - delivered like "you know perfectly well I have a condition!" Love it. And the rest of it. Including the "like maps and album covers or supermarket shelves", like any one of the whippersnappers would know either of those. They'll be more likely to know their rock type.
One reason that north is up that didn't get mentioned in the video is Claudius Ptolemy, who put north on top of his map of the world. This map was made in the second century and was republished by the early printers. During the Renaissance, intellectuals believed that everything was better in classical times and they used Ptolemy's map as a model.
Interesting, I might prefer south up if I were south of the equator. When I'm hiking, I need north to be up, of course. But when I'm driving, I need "ahead" to be up. I've tried the map (north up) when driving and it's completely confusing. And I live in a city with a prominent grid N/S layout.
3:50
Got an advert after he said back after the break
Hey Map Men, did you know that there is a "Map Room" in Eltham Palace (South-East London, English Heritage)? It's a room dedicated all to maps next to an impressive office with a massive globe inside. It would be amazing if you would manage to film there one day!
Uhh.. seems like I need to take the non-existent Underground out there to have a look!
So, is that downy-right London or Uppy-left London?
There's a culture in (I believe) Papua New Guinea that always uses the cardinal directions for everyday "navigation" instead of using the otherwise universal "left" and "right". When they point you to an object in a room or on a table, for example, they would say "take the north item", not "take the item on the left". They even change the names of their own body parts, using something like "north hand" instead of "right hand", depending on how they're facing. All the people seem to have internalized the cardinal directions and subconsciously keep track of them as they move through the world, even inside buildings. They took some people raised in this culture on a trip to a place they'd never been and -- after asking "which way is north?" -- they were easily able to continue using the same coordinates.
Aussie Aboriginals have the same system
@@Pointlessusername-zr3jy That might be what I'm thinking of.... memory is a bit hazy.
yup! the most studied language which expresses this kind of orientation is called Guugu Yimithirr. the speakers were tested to see if they would always say the right direction when describing and positioning places, and they were right like 90% of the time, if not, then they were really close. interesting how language affects your perspective and abilities
Pretty sure that the sun helps with orientation 😂
@@ekulyarg They can do it in a totally dark room as well, it has been tested scientifically
Who got an advert after they said after the break!
Great video. Very interesting to think not only about why north is at the top but also its implications, which are not something you would think about. Opened the door for many other implications to come to minf.
0:37 The map of Erebor (in the Hobbit) has East to the top. IIRC, he states in The Hobbit that East as up is standard for dwarven maps.
Was about to comment the same, I've always found that a pretty cool detail in The Hobbit
Yeah! Tolkien's map in the hobbit was the first time I saw a map without north at the top. Did they miss this or am I just missing the joke?
Edit: 0:32 "not even j.r.r. Tolkien could imagine an alternative way to ORIENT middle earth", and as said later (1:05), orientated means east to the top! I believe it's a Map Pun!
As a Rutlander, I very much enjoyed this! 0:31
Love seeing a new Map Men episode! Good work guys.
liar! we know rutland isn't real
When will the Rutland hate end? Haven’t we suffered enough!
@@alexsmith-rs6zq how do you suffer if you dont even exist?!
@@robertnelson1707🫠
Bot account
We all know Rutland is a conspiracy by the cia involving blue aliens from cygnetus 805b
So glad to see this back! It's one of my favorite things on UA-cam
this is my first time seeing anything from this channel and i loved it right up until that loop at the end.
Also fascinating (to me) is that film of the German Front in WWII, for both the Soviets and the Western allies, almost invariably orients toward north, whether or not the original film was taken that way. So film editors will reverse the angle if necessary to show Western allies on the left and Soviets on the right, with Germans facing whichever army they’re fighting.
I imagine it’s for the ease of the viewer who assumes a northward orientation, making identification of the respective armies almost automatic.
I just the other day read about the "Western front" and was puzzled, as it concerned German Wehrmacht and Soviet Red Army. Until I understood that that was the Soviet perspective. Their Western front was our Eastern front, of course.