Showing posts with label Stuart McArthur. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Stuart McArthur. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

"Upside Down" Maps

Who says North has to be up and South has to be down?
In 1970, a twelve year old Australian drew a map for school with his home, Australia, being at the top of the map. Nine years later, in 1979, Stuart McArthur published his map as "McArthur's Corrective Map of the World". Today this map has sold over a third of a million copies.
Higher quality: http://www.quodlibetica.com/wordpress/wp-content/files_flutter/1285878153McA-23x35-LT.jpg
The "Wizard of New Zealand" produced a "New World Map" that also has his home, New Zealand, at the top of the world. The map uses the Hobo-Dryer Projection which is a cylindrical equal-area projection.
Higher quality: http://flourish.org/upsidedownmap/hobodyer-large.jpg
Finally, for a more history example of upside down cartography we turn to Nicolas Desliens. In 1566, Desliens was living in Dieppe, France which was something of a cartographic hotspot during that period. He decided to map his map with North at the bottom in order to draw attention to his map.