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Comment by jmkd | Hacker News Reader

Maps should have east at the top for a few reasons:

1. The sun (and moon and planets and many stars) rises in the east.

2. The east represents what is to come. This manifests in natural (day / night cycles) and cultural (timezones / dateline) aspects.

3. Orienting a map to such an easy to locate (day or night) direction requires no compass or other technology.

4. Orienting a map with such an impactful direction at the top creates a strong literal connection to the territory it represents, rather than to a part-abstracted direction that must be identified and agreed.

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The sun doesn’t rise directly in the east though unless you live exactly on the equator, and it rises a different amount off of east every day. However, at noon, the sun is always either due north or due south depending on what hemisphere you’re in, so number 3 is quite arguable.

Also the North Star being a thing is quite influential.

It does on both equinoxes, which along with the solstices have been universally marked days in every civilization. Consider those days as reliable calibrations for any kind of wayfinding or navigation system in ancient times. Aztecs, Mayans and Incans noted the sunrise position every day of the year in order to plan agricultural (and cultural) activity.

Sure, but you can find north/south at noon _every day_.

I don’t actually have a strong opinion either way, but I think it’s true that you can find arbitrary explanations for anything you lie here. At the end of the day we just gotta pick a standard and go with it and we have done.

There are many ways to accurately determine north that have been known since antiquity. A magnetic compass was but one method of many.

Also, where the sun rises and sets varies enormously over the year. Using the sun to determine north (e.g. shadow-stick method) is more reliable.

From our perspective the sun doesn't travel top to bottom, so why orient the map that way?

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