Flip a map of Europe around so that Spain and Portugal are at the top and Russia at the bottom, and a surprising left-right symmetry emerges: Italy corresponds to Britain; Corsica, Sardinia, and Sicily to Ireland; the Adriatic to the North Sea; Greece to Denmark; Turkey to Norway and Sweden; and the Black Sea to the Baltic. The Balkans are a leftward bulge that has no rightward correlate, but hey, nothing’s perfect.
[…] Sjov med europakortet Fra det østrigsk-atenske imperium: Flip a map of Europe around so that Spain and Portugal are at the top and Russia at the bottom, and a surprising left-right symmetry emerges: Italy corresponds to Britain; Corsica, Sardinia, and Sicily to Ireland; the Adriatic to the North Sea; Greece to Denmark; Turkey to Norway and Sweden; and the Black Sea to the Baltic. The Balkans are a leftward bulge that has no rightward correlate, but hey, nothing’s perfect. […]
Might there be some geological explanation for how the continent would have ended up that way or is it just coincidence/our brain looking for a pattern?
Or could it be … oh, I don’t know … SATAN???
Is this what you do to alleviate boredom?
Well, I suppose it’s better than reading through old copies of World Almanacs like I do.
Fun site for fun maps:
http://flourish.org/upsidedownmap/
Not quite sideways, but it gives one a funny feeling after seeing maps the other way for so long.
Why not leave the map as is and get an up/down symmetry?
Why not leave the map as is and get an up/down symmetry?
For some reason it’s less noticeable that way (for me, at least). I suspect that’s because when it’s flipped with Spain at the top it looks vaguely more like a human figure (Spain the head, Italy and Britain the arms) and so triggers our (my?) human-figure response, which makes the symmetry more salient.
It’s more noticeable with symmetry about a vertical axis because there are structures in the visual cortex keyed to pick this type of symmetry out of the visual field – evolved to allow us to spot, for example, the tiger eyeing us for a snack…
looks like a dick or a uterus when u turn it the other way.
i like it.
In Ecuador there is actually a movement to teach school children with world-maps like this, where south is left and north is right. apparently it better represents the continents which were colonized by the goddamn americans and europeans, rather than keeping them “subjugated” underneath North American and Europe. (this has been proposed by the heir to one of the richest families in the country…)