If the world is round can we make any point of the world the center in maps? Or is there a specific reason all the world maps show the continents in the same orientation?
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You can make maps any way you want, and there do exist maps in other arrangements such as Chinese maps tending to be centered on China. But most world maps you encounter are going to be in the same orientation not only because of European influence but because the Pacific Ocean is enormous and it is better to put the break on either edge of the map in an ocean than on a continent.
The pacific ocean is huge, if the map were the other way with America on the right and europe on the left the map would be much wider. Its more compact to show the land all together in a smaller diagram.
It’s a convention, there used to be maps with east or south at the top.
The north is done since antiquity, and looks practical because the cut on the map occurs near the detroit of behring and in the middle of the pacific, cutting no land. Also, the meridian of greenwich (measure of time) appears in the center of the map.
Japanese maps (for example) shows japan in the middle of the map, the cut occuring in the middle of the Atlantic.
I’m sure there are scholars who can answer this, but you’re *sorta* right:
>If the world is round can we make any point of the world the center in maps?
I mean you *could,* but you should probably make the equator the center line of latitude. This is just practically helpful for maps – placing the poles firmly at the top/bottom. However there is nothing saying that you have to put North on top and South on bottom.
What is the center line of longitude, the prime meridian, is absolutely arbitrary – and my guess is its b/c Europe and England specifically were the ones who made the rules that defined culture. However that’s just me guessing.
It seems like China and other Asian countries more commonly use maps with [the Pacific as the center.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunyu_Wanguo_Quantu)
They don’t. Generally maps show themselves in the center, I assume you have just looked at ones from where you live.
You are right that you can make any longitude the center of a map. I have seen world maps in the US showing America in the center with Europe on the right and Asia on the left. I have also seen world maps with Eastern Asia in the center.
But this is not the “standard” world map. Both the British and the French agreed to put the center of the map through an area east of London which would put them in the center. And this became the standard for all sailors around the world and still persists in our world maps to this day.
The only justification outside tradition is that it does put the split in the Pacific ocean which is the least populated longitudes in the world. So not a lot of people live near the divide.
Because 0 longitude is the “center” and the coordinates count up going east and west from 0. The Americas are west of 0 and Asia is east of 0.
The next logical question then becomes why is 0 set where it is. That is because when the world decided to standardize it, most of the maps were already drawn with 0 where it was. And they were drawn that way because for centuries prior England was the naval powerhouse of the world so maps were drawn based on what England was using. Naturally England was going to set the center “home” point in the middle of their own country.
So maps today are laid out the way they are because the English navy said so a couple of hundred years ago.
I remember maps from when was a kid that put the Americas in the center and the wraparound point was in central Asia.
Yes, any conceivable point could be the center. For reasons of readability you wouldn’t really want the edge of the map to cut right through a landmass, so that leaves two real choices: have the edge go through the Atlantic or the Pacific.
Most (but not all) maps have the edge in the Pacific. The choice is basically arbitrary, but one possible reason to prefer it that way is that it puts the Prime Meridian (0 degrees longitude) at or near the center and puts the antimeridian (and the international date line) at or near the edge. That way all of the western longitudes are to the left and the eastern longitudes are to the right, which is how we normally thing about those directions on a map. If you did it the other way, it would be the other way around.
Also, depending on the map projection used, there will usually be more distortion near the edges and less in the middle. The Pacific is wider than the Atlantic, so if your map is centered on the Pacific a lot of that “better” space is being taken up by empty water and tiny islands, while Europe, West Africa, and the Americas get squished.
In principle, sure, we could do that. But cutting along the date line is intuitive. It’d seem a bit weird if you were looking at a map and somewhere near the middle the time zones jumped from -11 to +12, whereas when you cut on the date line one side of the map has -11, then -10… 0 nearish the middle, and then counting up towards +12 in the east.
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