South-up map orientation
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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South-up map orientation is the orientation of a map with south up, or at the top of the map, amounting to a 180-degree rotation of the map from the standard convention of north-up. Maps in this orientation are sometimes called upside down maps or reversed maps.
Other maps with non-standard orientation include T and O maps, polar maps, and Dymaxion maps.
In popular culture
South-up maps are commonly available as novelties or sociopolitical statements in southern hemisphere locales, particularly Australia. A south-up oriented world map appears in episode "Somebody's Going to Emergency, Somebody's Going to Jail" of The West Wing, and issues of cultural bias are discussed in relation to it. Mafalda, by Argentinian cartoonist Quino, is a popular daily cartoon strip in Latin America and Spain. It is about Mafalda, a five year-old girl, yet it is very political. One of the most famous episodes is based on the question: “why are we down?” She finally concludes that the southern hemisphere is so undeveloped because the ideas fall off. Then she puts her globe upside-down and, for a few days, everything is upside-down. American cartoonist Leo Cullum published a cartoon in The New Yorker titled, "Happy penguin looking at upside-down globe; Antarctica is on top" (April 20, 1992).
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