Ever since I spent 3 months on student exchange in Australia in 1992 and realised that I was not walking upside down, let alone falling off the earth, I have been very adamant against the use of “up” or “down” when describing locations on this planet. Without a reference point in space, there is no “up” or “down”.
Try to think of the world map as follows, for once:
Only too bad that even the publishers of this map cannot refrain from using the words “upside down”.
But this is not the only way in which maps over-emphasise the Northern hemisphere.
The Happy Hermit 
Yes, I know we are all evil Euro-centrics with our “down there” and “things going South” (meaning something going awry). But it’s hard making us old farts change. I’ve been getting “down” meaning south for almost 50 years! I’m too gul-dern dag-nabit old to change my ding-blasted ways! (Picture a bad Gabby Hayes impression. ;) )
Although you DO have to admit there’s a whole lot more territory … um .. above? .. north of? … well, there’s more land on North America’s and Europe’s side of the equator, so you COULD call it majority rules. Besides, you’d do the pop music industry a dis-service, if you couldn’t call Oz “The Land Down Under”! :D
You are confusing me!
I can’t even find anything on a normal map :-(
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The ancient Egyptians the architects of a lot of our modern world, and some of the greatest mathematicians and philosophers throughout history viewed the world in this way. Somehow in our modern world the perspective of how things really are in actually, got reversed. It’s funny when you look at the map viewed this way it seems not right, out of place because we have been conditioned to see the map outlined the other way. It makes you wonder about life though, what is right is really wrong, what’s up is really down and vice versa.
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