Maps lie. Well, maybe "lie" is a bit harsh. Let’s say they have perspectives. If you grew up in a classroom in the United States, you likely saw a world map where the Americas sit comfortably in the center, flanked by the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. But take a flight to Tokyo or Sydney, and suddenly, the "middle" of the world shifts. This isn't just a design choice; it's a window into how we see ourselves. If you’ve ever wondered what a map look like based on culture, you’re really asking how humans project their own ego, history, and spiritual values onto a flat piece of paper.
Maps are basically just data visualizations of power.
Take the Mercator projection. It's the one we all know. It makes Greenland look the size of Africa and Europe look massive. Gerardus Mercator didn't do this to be a jerk; he was making a tool for sailors in 1569. It keeps lines of constant bearing straight, which is great for not crashing your ship, but terrible for understanding the actual size of the Global South. When culture is the primary lens, landmasses don't just shrink or grow; they move. They rotate. Sometimes, they disappear entirely to make room for what a specific group of people deems "holy" or "central."
The North-Up Bias is a Modern Invention
South doesn't mean down. There is no "up" in space. Yet, almost every modern map places North at the top. This is a relatively recent cultural habit. For centuries, many Islamic cartographers, including the famous Al-Idrisi in the 12th century, produced maps with South at the top. Why? Because for many people living North of Mecca, looking "up" toward the holy city felt more intuitive.
If you look at the Tabula Rogeriana, Al-Idrisi’s masterpiece, the world looks upside down to a Western eye. But it wasn't upside down to him. It was oriented toward the heart of his world.
Then you have the medieval European Mappa Mundi. These weren't meant for hiking. They were spiritual infographics. Most of them were "oriented" literally—meaning East was at the top because that was the direction of the Garden of Eden and the rising sun. Jerusalem sat dead center. If you were a traveler in 1300, a map was a guide to salvation, not necessarily a guide to the nearest tavern. The physical distance between London and Rome mattered less than the symbolic distance between a sinner and the Holy Land.
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Indigenous Cartography: Mapping Relationships, Not Just Rocks
Western maps are obsessed with borders and property. We draw lines. "This is mine, that is yours." But what would a map look like based on culture if that culture didn't believe in land ownership?
Indigenous maps, like those created by the Marshall Islanders (stick charts), are fascinating. These aren't "maps" in the sense of ink on paper. They are lattices made of coconut fronds and shells. They don't show land as the primary feature; they show ocean swells and wave patterns. To the Marshallese, the water isn't the space between things. The water is the thing. The map is a mnemonic device for navigating the invisible forces of the Pacific.
In many Aboriginal Australian cultures, "Songlines" act as a map. These aren't visual drawings but oral narratives that describe the landscape. By singing the song, a person can navigate hundreds of miles because the lyrics describe landmarks created by ancestral beings. It’s a map of time and sound. Honestly, it makes our GPS look kinda boring.
The "Ego-Centric" Map: Why Everyone Wants to be the Middle
Most countries place themselves in the center of their own world maps. It makes sense. You’re the protagonist of your own story, right?
- Chinese Maps: Often use a Pacific-centered projection. This places the "Middle Kingdom" (Zhongguo) right where the name suggests it should be. The Americas are pushed to the far right, and Europe is a distant fringe on the left.
- Australian Maps: You can buy "Upside Down" maps in Sydney. While often sold as a novelty, they make a valid point. By putting the Southern Hemisphere at the top, the entire power dynamic of the "Global North" vs. the "Global South" is visually challenged.
- The Peters Projection: This gained fame in the 1970s and 80s for showing the actual relative sizes of continents. Africa and South America look elongated and "stretched," but that’s because they actually are that big compared to Europe and North America.
It’s easy to dismiss these as just different ways to draw a circle, but visuals matter. They dictate who we think is "important" and who is "peripheral."
When Culture Erases the Map
Sometimes, what is left out of a map tells you more about the culture than what is put in. Look at 19th-century colonial maps of Africa. Cartographers would often leave vast interior spaces blank or label them as "unexplored" or "savage." These areas weren't empty; they were home to millions of people with complex societies. But because they weren't "discovered" by Europeans, they didn't exist on the map. This "cultural ghosting" provided a moral justification for colonization. If it's an empty space on the map, it's "free" for the taking.
Contrast this with the Aztec Map of Cuauhtinchan. It’s a 16th-century document that blends geography with genealogy and history. It shows the migration of the Chichimec people. It’s not just a map of where they were, but a story of who they became. Footprints mark the paths of ancestors. In this cultural map, history and geography are the same thing. You can't have one without the other.
Digital Mapping and the Death of Local Context
We live in the era of Google Maps. It’s the most "accurate" map we’ve ever had, but it’s also the most culturally sterile. Every city looks the same—blue lines for roads, green for parks, little icons for Starbucks.
However, even digital maps have cultural biases. Take "disputed borders." If you access Google Maps from India, the borders of Kashmir look different than if you access them from Pakistan. The software is programmed to show you a version of "truth" that aligns with your local laws and cultural expectations. Even in the age of satellites, the map is still an opinion.
Think about the terminology. We still use "Middle East" and "Far East." East of what? East of London. The Prime Meridian, the line that divides the world into East and West, goes through Greenwich, England. Why? Because when the International Meridian Conference met in 1884, the British Empire was the dominant global power. Our entire global system of time and space is still oriented around a 19th-century navy.
The Actionable Reality of Cultural Mapping
Understanding what a map look like based on culture isn't just a fun trivia fact. It’s a tool for de-biasing your own brain. When you look at a map, you are looking at a set of priorities.
If you want to truly understand a region, you have to look at the maps they make.
- Seek out counter-mapped perspectives. Look for maps created by local activists or indigenous groups that highlight ancestral names and landmarks rather than colonial ones.
- Use the Gall-Peters projection for a week. Put it on your wall. It will feel "wrong" at first, but it will eventually re-calibrate your understanding of the world’s actual scale.
- Check your orientation. Try navigating a new city without "North up" on your phone. Rotate the map to your direction of travel. It changes how you perceive the flow of the street.
- Acknowledge the center. Whenever you see a "World Map," ask yourself: "Who is in the middle, and why?"
Geography is often treated as a hard science, but it’s a social science at heart. The mountains might be real, but the lines we draw between them—and which way we point the paper—are purely human inventions. By exploring maps from different cultures, you aren't just learning where things are; you're learning how people think. You’re seeing the world through someone else’s eyes, and that’s a lot more useful than just finding the nearest highway.
Next time you open a map app, remember that you're looking at one version of the truth, filtered through a specific set of cultural and technological values. The "real" world is much messier, much bigger, and far more interesting than any single projection can ever capture.
Practical Next Steps
To deepen your understanding of cultural cartography, visit the Leventhal Map & Education Center online or search for the Native Land Digital project. This interactive tool allows you to see the world mapped not by modern nations, but by the indigenous territories and languages that predated them. It’s a jarring and necessary exercise in seeing the "invisible" maps that still exist beneath our current ones. Additionally, explore the work of cartographer Denis Wood, whose book The Power of Maps deconstructs the political motives behind every line drawn on a page. Understanding that every map is an argument will change the way you look at the world forever.