I recently discovered the joy of world exploration through Google Earth! How incredibly freakin' kewl is this software? So I've been planning numerous motorcycle trips, exploring Patagonia, Chile, Buenos Aires -- South America basically. And in this process of spinning the digital globe, scoping different geographical features from new aspects, I became curious--why are maps always viewed with north up?
This doesn't make much sense to me, so I did a little research (5 minutes of Googling), and discovered .... there is no good reason, only that many years ago, some Egyptian cartographer decided that's the way it should be ... and that's the way it is. Apparently, in Australia you can find the occasional South up map or globe. I'd like to get my hands on an South up globe; seems like it would a good conversation piece for cocktail parties.
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Actually if youve ever driven from Mexico to the northern territtories of Canada a small yet uphill grade due to the curvature of the earth is noticed.If You travelled South of the equator and maintained a heading south it is a slight grade downwards.Earth is just a large ball but maintains gravity .North therefor remains called "Up" If you headed from Argentina toward the equator the results would be the same, "Up"
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