Language & WorldMental model

North is only "up" because we're used to it.

There is no up in space. Medieval European maps often put east at the top, and Islamic cartographers like al-Idrisi put south there. North won out with the compass and European sea charts from the 16th century on. Flip a map and Australia, South America and Africa suddenly look central, while Europe sits at the bottom edge.

Useful: Every map makes choices: orientation, centre, projection. Ask who made them.

Source: en.wikipedia.org

Denkwerkzeug GeografieKarten

Difficulty:

Related cards

Why your flight to Tokyo goes over Siberia.On a sphere, the shortest path is a great circle, a circle centred on Earth's core. On a flat map …
Greenland is 14 times too big on your map.The Mercator projection from 1569 preserves angles so sailors could draw courses as straight lines. …
In western China the sun sometimes rises at 10 a.m.China spans roughly 5,000 km from east to west, geographically five time zones. Officially, since …
Two countries need two border crossings to reach the sea.Around 44 countries have no coastline. Only two are doubly landlocked, surrounded entirely by other …
Why nobody may make, enforce and judge laws at once.Montesquieu described three powers in 1748: the legislature (parliament) passes laws, the executive …
The prime meridian isn't where the line in Greenwich is.Tourists stand on the brass prime-meridian line in Greenwich. Your GPS there reads 0.0015° West …
More lanes don't make the traffic jam smaller.Widen a road and travel time drops briefly. That very drop attracts new trips: people switch from …
Atlantic to Pacific through Panama means sailing southeast.Panama curves so that the canal from the Caribbean to the Pacific runs roughly northwest to …

Keep reading

This card belongs to the topic Language & World. Every card is short, cites a source and can be saved – due ones come back by themselves later.

About Doomlearn · Projects · Legal notice · Privacy · Terms