North is one of the four
cardinal directions, specifically the direction that, in
Western culture, is treated as
the fundamental direction:
- North is used (explicitly or implicitly) to define all other directions.
- The (visual) top edges of maps usually correspond to the northern edge of the area represented, unless explicitly stated otherwise or landmarks are considered more useful for that territory than specific directions.
- On any rotating object; the side appearing to rotate counter-clockwise when viewed from afar.
Etymology
The word
north is
related to the
Old High German nord, both descending from the
Proto-Indo-European unit
ner-, meaning "left" (or "under"). (Presumably a natural primitive description of its concept is "to the left of the rising sun".)
Latin
borealis is from Greek
boreas "north wind, north", in mythology (according to
Ovid) personified as the son of the river-god
Strymon, and father of
Calais and Zetes;
septentrionalis is from
septentriones, "the seven plow oxen", a name of
Ursa Maior. Greek
arktikos "northern" is named for the same constellation (c.f.
Arctic).
Other languages have sometimes more interesting derivations. For example, in
Lezgian kefer can mean both 'disbelief' and 'north', since north of Muslim
Lezgians there are areas inhabited by non-Muslim
Slavic peoples. In many languages of
Mesoamerica, 'north' means also 'up'.
Magnetic north and declination
Magnetic north is of interest because it is the direction indicated as north on a properly functioning (but uncorrected) magnetic
compass. The difference between it and true north is called the
magnetic declination (or simply the declination where the context is clear). For many purposes and physical circumstances, the error in direction that results from ignoring the distinction is tolerable; in others a mental or instrument compensation, based on assumed knowledge of the applicable declination, can solve all the problems. But simple generalizations on the subject should be treated as unsound, and as likely to reflect popular misconceptions about
terrestrial magnetism.
Roles of north as prime direction
The visible rotation of the night sky around the visible
celestial pole provides a vivid metaphor of that direction corresponding to up. Thus the choice of the north as corresponding to up in the
northern hemisphere, or of south in that role in the southern, is, prior to world-wide communication, anything but an arbitrary one. On the contrary, it is of interest that Chinese and Islamic culture even considered south as the proper top end for maps.
In Western culture:
- Maps tend to be drawn for viewing with either true north or magnetic north at the top
- Globes of the earth have the North Pole at the top, or if the earth's axis is represented as inclined from vertical (normally by the angle it has relative to the axis of the earth's orbit), in the top half.
- Maps are usually labelled to indicate which direction on the map corresponds to a direction on the earth,
- * usually with a single arrow oriented to the map's representation of true north,
- * occasionally with a single arrow oriented to the map's representation of magnetic north, or two arrows oriented to true and magnetic north respectively,
- * occasionally with a compass rose, but if so, usually on a map with north at the top and usually with north decorated more prominently than any other compass point.
- Up is a metaphor for north. The notion that north should always be up and east at the right was established by the Greek astronomer Ptolemy. The historian Daniel Boorstin suggests that perhaps this was because the better-known places in his world were in the northern hemisphere, and on a flat map these were most convenient for study if they were in the upper right-hand corner.
Roles of east and west as inherently subsidiary directions
While the choice of north over south as prime direction reflects quite arbitrary historical factors, east and west are not nearly as natural alternatives as first glance might suggest. Their folk definitions are, respectively, "where the sun rises" and "where it sets". Except on the Equator, however, these definitions, taken together, would imply that
- east and west would not be 180 degrees apart, but instead would differ from that by up to twice the degrees of latitude of the location in question, and
- they would each move slightly from day to day and, in the temperate zones, markedly over the course of the year.
Reasonably accurate folk astronomy, such as is usually attributed to
Stone Age peoples or later
Celts, would arrive at east and west by noting the directions of rising and setting (preferably more than once each) and choosing as prime direction one of the two mutually opposite directions that lie halfway between those two. The true folk-astronomical definitions of east and west are "the directions, a right angle from the prime direction, that are closest to the rising and setting, respectively, of the sun (or moon).
Cultural References
Being the "default" direction on the compass, North is referred to frequently in Western popular culture. Some examples include:
- The phrase "north of X" is often used to mean "more than X" or "greater than X", i.e. "The world population is north of 6 billion people."
See also
- "The North", a sense of the term that refers to the Northern part of the world, as contrasted to the South
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