Upside-Down Map
Upside-Down Map
[Map of the world with all the landmasses rotated upside-down.] [Four oceans and all the visible continents have been named in large letters in a bold font. The Pacific has been named both to the left and right. Several islands (large and small) have been designated with name but in grey and in a much smaller normal font. For all continents the names are written on them. For the island the name is written in the ocean except for Greenland.]
[Below the names on the map are given in the order they appear reading from left to right, first for the northern and then the southern hemisphere:]
[Northern hemisphere:] North America Cuba Greenland Atlantic Ocean Iceland UK Asia Sri Lanka Europe Arctic Ocean Taiwan Japan Pacific Ocean
[Southern hemisphere:] Pacific Ocean South America Tierra del Fuego Africa Indian Ocean Madagascar Indonesia Australia New Zealand
[Below the main frame:] This upside-down map will change your perspective on the world!
Map projections are also the subject of 977: Map Projections . In fact, if this comic was released later, it would certainly have "Bad Map Projection # n " on the top, and would be part of the category .

This comic plays on the idea that maps with the south pole at the top will "change your perspective of the world". Most world maps orient north in the upward direction, placing the north pole as the top. Such an orientation is purely a matter of convention, as 'up' and 'down' don't apply in a planetary context. The north = up tradition probably emerged because most historical cartographers hailed from the northern hemisphere, and placed their own nations at the top. Some people and groups object that this convention subtly, but perniciously, advances the assumption that countries in the northern hemisphere are inherently more important than those in the southern hemisphere. This is especially sensitive because most of the wealthier and more powerful countries in the world are in the northern hemisphere, while relatively fewer southern hemisphere countries have as much wealth or global influence. Early maps had eastern Asia oriented at the top of the map, beyond Israel and the Holy Land in the middle, and western Europe at the bottom.
To remedy this, some advocate the use of maps with the south pole oriented at the top. Some want such maps in common use, while others simply use them to encourage people to rethink their assumptions about how the world should be seen. Such a map can easily be achieved by simply rotating a normal map 180 degrees, though the text labels would also be upside-down and harder to read. A Google Images search reveals many examples of upside-down maps with the text-oriented correctly for reading.
This map is a comedic play on such maps, where each landmass is in the same position it would be in a traditional north-top map but rotated 180 degrees (presumably around some central point of the landmass) to the orientation it would have in a south-top map. Such a map is, of course, almost completely useless in real life, because it completely distorts the relative positioning of the landmasses. Moreover, it keeps the northern countries at the top of the map, which means one of the chief complaints about traditional maps is unaddressed.
Note that individual islands are rotated about their own centers, rather than following the rotation of the neighboring continent; however, some are displaced as necessary to keep them from being overlapped by the rotated continents. For instance, Madagascar would be overlapped by the Sahara if it remained in position, but is instead displaced eastward to keep it in the Indian Ocean. On the other hand, all the islands of the Mediterranean Sea have disappeared under Asia .
Asia is so broad that almost the entire Indochinese Peninsula (with for instance Vietnam and Thailand ) has been rotated out of the top of the map. Similarly, the map omits Antarctica in the south.
To keep their familiar shapes on a rectangular map, the continents would also have to be heavily distorted compared to their actual shapes, becoming much narrower (along the lines of latitude) near the poles and wider towards the equator. See also 977: Map Projections .
The basic climates for several areas would be distinctly different. For example, the former Central America area would be in the arctic zone, while Siberia would be subtropical.
This arrangement of the world's landmasses would have great advantages for trade because there are (presumably navigable) straits between the Americas and between Africa and Asia, removing the need for the Panama Canal and the Suez Canal .
The title text references the fact that, in this new map, the UK is now next to Asia – specifically the Korean Peninsula . North Korea is mentioned in the text as having a history of hostile relations with nearby countries. However, on this map North Korea would be the part of Korea we today know as South Korea . Furthermore, Northern Ireland is now at the south of the island of Ireland , so the UK's full name would need to change to The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Southern Ireland. There have been several wars concerning the English Channel , mainly, but not only, between England and France . Likewise, there has been a history of animosity between Korea and Japan , separated by a similar body of water. Since, on this world map, a channel now exists between the UK and North Korea (the real world's South Korea) there could obviously have been many wars for the dominance over the said channel.
Along the same line of thinking, interesting speculations could be made about the following "new" facts:
[Map of the world with all the landmasses rotated upside-down.] [Four oceans and all the visible continents have been named in large letters in a bold font. The Pacific has been named both to the left and right. Several islands (large and small) have been designated with name but in grey and in a much smaller normal font. For all continents the names are written on them. For the island the name is written in the ocean except for Greenland.]
[Below the names on the map are given in the order they appear reading from left to right, first for the northern and then the southern hemisphere:]
[Northern hemisphere:] North America Cuba Greenland Atlantic Ocean Iceland UK Asia Sri Lanka Europe Arctic Ocean Taiwan Japan Pacific Ocean
[Southern hemisphere:] Pacific Ocean South America Tierra del Fuego Africa Indian Ocean Madagascar Indonesia Australia New Zealand
[Below the main frame:] This upside-down map will change your perspective on the world!
Map projections are also the subject of 977: Map Projections . In fact, if this comic was released later, it would certainly have "Bad Map Projection # n " on the top, and would be part of the category .
