An Eastern Metropolis
Maps are the way that most of us conceptualize the world. When someone asks you what the world looks like most of us picture the world map, and usually that map is the Mercator projection. North America up in the top left corner, Europe in the middle to right, Russia over in the top right, Africa lower middle and Australia down in the right. So much of our outlook has been shaped by these maps. Australians refer to themselves as being from ‘down under,’ everyone thinks that North America is just as big, if not bigger then Africa. This is mostly due to the proportions and layout of the Mercator projection. When people look at different projections of the world like an equal area projection it tends to make most people a little unsettled, the world tends too look wrong.
The Gulf of St Laurence During the Colonial Era
While I was a lecturer at Ulsan College I brought a copy of the “What’s up? South!” world map back from one of my trips home. After it had rolled off a conveyer belt in Newark, and slowly followed me back to Korea via a number of exotic airports I was finally able to put it up on one of my office walls. I had no sooner gotten it unrolled that one of my co-workers, the garrulous Professor Ahn came over to pay me a visit. When he saw the map I was trying to put up upside down, he asked me what I was doing. After explaining that the map was designed that we he instructed me to still put it with North at the top regardless of the way the writing was done on the page. South being up was just wrong and he quickly left the room, definitely a little unsettled. His reaction may seem strange when you write it down but if most of us are honest with ourselves we would have to admit that it isn’t that dissimilar from our own.
The same can hold true when looking back at historical maps, before satellites and google earth mapped every square inch of the planet for all to see maps of faraway and ‘new’ lands tended to inspire awe and a sense of mystery when you looked at them. Its possible to get a sense of what it may of felt like to look at this evidence of distant places that you may never have ever thought existed. The David Rumsey Collection is a vast online collection of historical maps, boasting thousands of historical maps that are digitized and accessible via the website. Looking at old area maps of the urban area’s that we live in can give a greater understanding of how these areas came to be. Not to mention its just kind of fun to look through them.
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