(ELI5) Why is North and South America always on the left of maps and referred to as the West. Could easily be the East.

Question

Do maps of the world in Europe Africa Asia show the Usa on the left as well?

In: Other

Answer 1

It’s because the early map designers wanted to put either Europe, Africa or the Atlantic Ocean in the middle.

For many years this was popular because it meant your main trade routes did not go off the edge of the map. Otherwise your route would go off the edge of the map and appear on the other side.

From an aesthetic point of view, if you put the America’s in the right hand side, the entire middle of the map would be the Pacific Ocean and that both looks terrible and wouldn’t be useful for navigation at the time.