Historical factors shaped the conventional north-up orientation of modern world maps.
Historical traditions, stemming from ancient cosmological frameworks and reinforced by Enlightenment-era European cartography and educational practices, directly shaped the conventional north-up orientation of modern world maps.
Papers [2] and [8] explicitly discuss how the north-up orientation of modern maps is a cultural and historical convention rooted in ancient Greek cosmology, Ptolemaic geometry, and modern educational standardization. No papers refute this claim.
Panos Kratimenos. North isn’t necessarily up: map projections, the politics of cartography and their relevance to archaeology. 2022. https://doi.org/10.14324/111.444.ai.2022.06
Demonstrates that the normalized north-up orientation is a recent development shaped by historical, political, and cultural factors rather than an arbitrary default.
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Tony Alan Ratliff. North in the head: spatial reference frame and map orientation. 2020. https://doi.org/10.5194/ica-abs-2-6-2020
Traces the historical roots of the north-up convention from ancient Greek cosmology and Ptolemy through Renaissance cartography and 19th-century educational standardization.
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