{"id":1808941,"date":"2022-09-07T09:08:37","date_gmt":"2022-09-07T13:08:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/?p=1808941"},"modified":"2022-09-07T09:08:37","modified_gmt":"2022-09-07T13:08:37","slug":"the-idea-of-north","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2022\/09\/the-idea-of-north\/","title":{"rendered":"The Idea of North"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thony Christie explores the question<\/a> of why north is at the top of modern maps by looking in detail at medieval and early modern maps, which had no consensus. \u201cI think that the re-emergence of the Ptolemaic world map at the beginning of the fifteenth century and the development of modern cartography that it triggered which eventually led to the dominance of north orientation in mapmaking, perhaps combined with the increased use of the magnetic compass.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thony Christie explores the question of why north is at the top of modern maps by looking in detail at medieval and early modern maps, which had no consensus. \u201cI think that the re-emergence of… More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"link","meta":{"autoblue_enabled":true,"autoblue_custom_message":"","autoblue_shares":[],"autoblue_post_url":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[276,949,1590],"class_list":["post-1808941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-link","hentry","category-antique-maps","tag-mappae-mundi","tag-medieval-cartography","tag-north","post_format-post-format-link"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":513340,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2017\/12\/a-book-roundup-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":1808941,"position":0},"title":"A Book Roundup","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"19 December 2017","format":"link","excerpt":"The Routledge Handbook Out last month, the expensive, 600-page\u00a0Routledge Handbook of Mapping and Cartography\u00a0(Routledge). Edited by Alexander J. Kent (who co-wrote\u00a0The Red Atlas) and Peter Vujakovic, the book \"draws on the wealth of new scholarship and practice in this emerging field, from the latest conceptual developments in mapping and advances\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Antique Maps"","block_context":{"text":"Antique Maps","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/antique-maps\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/social-life-of-maps-142x150.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/social-life-of-maps-142x150.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/social-life-of-maps-142x150.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/social-life-of-maps-142x150.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/social-life-of-maps-142x150.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/social-life-of-maps-142x150.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":5218,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2017\/10\/ancient-maps-and-the-ancient-psyche\/","url_meta":{"origin":1808941,"position":1},"title":"Ancient Maps and the Ancient Psyche","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"17 October 2017","format":"link","excerpt":"Maps are artifacts of the era in which they were created: they reflect not only what people knew about the world, but how they saw it. That's the thrust of Amelia Soth's article for\u00a0JSTOR Daily about\u00a0The Book of Curiosities of the Sciences, and Marvels for the Eyes, a Fatimid-era cosmography\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Antique Maps"","block_context":{"text":"Antique Maps","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/antique-maps\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/book-of-curiosities-1024x678.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/book-of-curiosities-1024x678.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/book-of-curiosities-1024x678.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/book-of-curiosities-1024x678.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":2299,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2016\/06\/the-origins-of-north-at-the-top-of-maps\/","url_meta":{"origin":1808941,"position":2},"title":"The Origins of North at the Top of Maps","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"23 June 2016","format":"link","excerpt":"BBC Future's Caroline Williams explores the following question: why do modern maps have north at the top?\u00a0\"Given such a long history of human map-making, it is perhaps surprising that it is only within the last few hundred years that north has been consistently considered to be at the top.\"\u00a0Early European\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "History"","block_context":{"text":"History","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/history\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1817206,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2023\/07\/map-men-on-why-north-is-up\/","url_meta":{"origin":1808941,"position":3},"title":"Map Men on Why North Is Up","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"11 July 2023","format":"link","excerpt":"https:\/\/youtu.be\/B14Gtm2Z_70 The latest episode of Jay Foreman and Mark Cooper-Jones\u2019s all-too-infrequent series\u00a0Map Men looks at why north is at the top of modern maps, and features examples of maps where this was, or is, not the case, and why. For something a bit more ... academic, see Mick Ashworth\u2019s Why\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Cartography"","block_context":{"text":"Cartography","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/cartography\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/B14Gtm2Z_70\/0.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6102,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2017\/11\/horror-vacui-the-fear-of-blank-spaces\/","url_meta":{"origin":1808941,"position":4},"title":"Horror Vacui: The Fear of Blank Spaces","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"21 November 2017","format":"link","excerpt":"In an article I published in 2013, I argued that one key difference between fantasy maps and the real-world medieval and early modern maps they purport to imitate is blank spaces: fantasy maps are full of blank spaces (that which is not in the story is not on the map),\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Antique Maps"","block_context":{"text":"Antique Maps","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/antique-maps\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/carta-marina-b-1024x733.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/carta-marina-b-1024x733.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/carta-marina-b-1024x733.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/carta-marina-b-1024x733.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1785487,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2018\/04\/new-and-reissued-books-for-april-2018\/","url_meta":{"origin":1808941,"position":5},"title":"New and Reissued Books for April 2018","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"24 April 2018","format":"link","excerpt":"New Editions The third edition of Mark Monmonier's classic\u00a0How to Lie with Maps (University of Chicago Press, 1o April) \"includes significant updates throughout as well as new chapters on image maps, prohibitive cartography, and online maps. It also includes an expanded section of color images and an updated list of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Antique Maps"","block_context":{"text":"Antique Maps","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/antique-maps\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/how-to-lie-with-maps-3rd-99x150.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1808941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1808941"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1808941\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1808942,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1808941\/revisions\/1808942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1808941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1808941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1808941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}