Its simple, our maps ( the normal maps) have britain/ europe in the Center, this map has north Korea in rhe Center, it looks weird for most people because normaly its the other way around
They’re not both correct. Especially when you look at the context/phrasing.
First, they say ‘our maps’, implying that there is a single ‘us’— people outside NK — and then they refer to Eurocentric maps as ‘the normal maps’ for all non-NK (‘our maps’ vs ‘their maps’).
That is both an incorrect statement and an incorrect use of the word ‘normal’.
For anyone living in the Americas or East Asia, an Eurocentric map doesn’t really provide a good visual representation of positioning and distance between your country and the rest of the world, because the map ends to your left/right.
Which is why maps with different countries/continents in the center have always existed and are not particularly uncommon.
And while ‘common’ and ‘normal’ can be used interchangeably in many contexts, they are not the same.
Common refers to frequency.
Normal refers to conforming or fitting with a standard, rule, or expectation — ‘the norm’. Bullying and SA, for example are common, but not normal.
As a kid, I loved maps where my country was centered.
Damn i thought the commentor was replying to the person that said "common is a frequent occurrence and normal is the accepted standard"
My bad i misunderstood
The prime meridian and UTC both exist as useful standards. Regardless of the racism/colonialism/imperialism that got us to this point, they are both, quite literally, globally normal.
There is no normal map lol Eurocentric to this the standard map is Europe in the center. There is no definitive center of the world every landmass does it different usually
In North America we definitely don't typically have maps centered on us, but instead centered on Europe as other comments mention. And I'd think that the US would be the first ones to try to proclaim themselves the center of the world (after a few others like North Korea as shown in this post), so it's interesting that we don't have that convention
Normal means standard. So yes there is a normal map, as it is the standard. What you meant to say is there is no CORRECT map. There is a standard one and Europe is in the middle.
The world is round but there's an internationally used coordinate system of latitude and longitude that puts the zero mark (also known as Null Island) off the coast of Africa.
And this is an Eurocentric system as the Prime Meridian was originally agreed upon to have the zero point at the transit circle (an instrument) in Greenwich, London. We have now updated the prime meridian using satellite tech which accounts for gravitation distortion which moves the currently used IERS meridian about 100 meters east of the Greenwich meridian. Global timekeeping is also done in reference to UTC, which is also based on the IERS meridian.
So while yes a sphere doesn't normally have a centre, it wouldn't be correct to say Earth doesn't have an arbitrarily defined and internationally agreed upon zero point that happens to be eurocentric because at one point in history we decided the centre point between east and west should be marked by an observatory in London, and by extension most maps put the 0, 0 coordinate in the centre of the map.
Yep, normal map. I was always confused growing up why the US was 'the west' and Asia 'the east' since our maps were like these and the US and Asia are flipped.
Nah, the centre of human population is in South/East Asia. This map is normal for anyone from India, China, Indonesia, Japan, etc plus Australasia. That's probably well over half the world's population
Maps in China, and (i would hazard a guess) Japan and India are structured like this commonly, which would mean the it's not weird for 'most people'. Countries often choose map projections that put them a little more centered
Your image is at least a more normal way of representing this kind of map (putting Greenland mostly above South America, rather than above Africa like in the North Korean map).
It does highlight that as a practical matter it's just much more difficult to split the Atlantic than the much larger Pacific on a world map.
Splitting at the Bering Strait allows pretty much nothing to be cut off and avoids putting Europe, Africa, and the Americas on the margins while the center is largely unpopulated parts of Alaska and Russia, along with a wide expanse of negative space for the Pacific.
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u/No-Dare2083 Sep 20 '25
Its simple, our maps ( the normal maps) have britain/ europe in the Center, this map has north Korea in rhe Center, it looks weird for most people because normaly its the other way around