eli5 How do we decide which one is North Pole and which is south pole? The space is almost infinite on all directions. So what we see on map might be wrong right? I mean it could also be upside down too.
In: Earth Science
It’s arbitrary. The axis of the earth creates two directions which persist, the spinning creates two other directions. The names for those are north (incidentally, the word north comes from the proto indo european word “net”, meaning left or below, because that was the direction which is left of you when you face the rising sun), south for the other direction, east for turnwise/the direction the sun comes up from and west for counter-turnwise.
The habit of having maps top north is also arbitrary, but understandable since the white european culture is located in the northern hemisphere.
Fun fact: before geographical maps took over, there were also hermeneutic maps dealing with a world view instead of the accurate depiction of land masses and water. Examples are the [Ebstorf world map](https://warnke.web.leuphana.de/hyperimage/EbsKart/#O9999/) (interactive, but german) and the Psalter map of London [see here](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psalter_world_map). Note that those have the EAST at the top. They’re literally oriented, since the orient is where the sun comes up, remember? Coincidentally, the orient was also the center of belief in those times leading to eastfacing maps.
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