地圖為什麼是「上北下南」？

shaner

Mercator’s world map, from 1569, was almost certainly a defining moment in north-up map-making. His map was famously the first to take into account the curvature of the Earth, so that sailors could cross long distances without overshooting the mark. Again, though, Brotton says that north had little to do with it.  “Mercator projected the poles to infinity. He says in his description that it doesn’t matter because we are not terribly interested in sailing to them. North is at the top but nobody cares about north because we’re not going there.”

Even so, he could have put the map either way up. Perhaps the choice was simply because the Europeans were doing most of the exploring at the time: in the northern hemisphere, there is far more land to explore and far more people.