Why is the majority of the Earth’s landmass in the northern hemisphere?
In: Physics
It may be because of the Earth’s natural fault lines in the ocean. One example of this is the “Mid Ocean Ridge.” Magma escapes from the crack and pushes the oceanic crust like a conveyor belt taking the continental crust with it. So, the landmass is probably being pushed. Some people believe it has something to do with the Earth’s rotation.
That’s just where the continents happen to be at the moment. They move around from tectonic drift. ~200 million years ago Gondwana supercontinent had most of the land mass in the southern hemisphere.
It’s mostly a coincidence. Same reason a majority of the land is bunched together on the same side of the globe. The pacific ocean is almost half of the earth’s surface area, but it’s tough to see on a normal map since that’s where it’s cut.
Besides the geologic/scientific explanations, there’s also the notion that at some point in time, it was someone living in the northern hemisphere that drew a map and defined it that way. Except for the fact that we all “accept” that north is north, and south is south, had a society that lived in the Southern Hemisphere been the dominant and advanced society that then traveled and colonized large parts of the rest of the world, we just as easily could have a map that displays the Southern Hemisphere at the top of the map. There is no scientific or other reason that I’m aware of that the top of a map has to be north. Just turns out that what we call western culture “won” when it comes to how a map is typically drawn and displayed.
I supposed an argument can likely be made that shows that due to the fact that there is more land in the northern hemisphere, that led to more people living there, and that contributed to the way we look at maps…
Latest Answers