Is this map wrong?
Yes ... and no! This map raises several interesting issues.
Firstly, our view of the world is very eurocentric (focused on Europe: from a European perspective) or even anglocentric (from an English perspective). We tend to put the UK in the middle because we are from the UK and conveniently we decided that the Prime Meridian (0° Longitude) should go through Greenwich in London and so, it makes perfect (if slightly biased) sense that this line should run down the centre of all maps.
However, the world is a sphere (well a flattened spheroid anyway) and so there is no 'right way up'. It is the person that makes the map that decides where the middle of the map is and, by doing so, where the most important place in the world is perceived to be. It is very subtle, but very powerful. Look at the Roman map of the world below.
The Roman world had the Mediterranean at its core: litterally as Medi = Middle and Terra=Earth. So the Mediterranean Sea was the Middle Earth Sea and not a Hobbit in sight!
Now look at the map again. Can you find any place names that you recognise? Gallia is where the Gauls (like Asterix and Obelix) came from: now known as France. The Nile is there running through Egypt with its huge delta feeding into the Mediterranean Sea. Italy is there with the Apennines running down it's spine and with Sicily at it's toe. Sardinia and Corsica are even floating about nearby.
How would you feel if you were from Britain, India or Ethiopia? You are right on the edge of the world: peripheral. In other words, you are not important at all!
So now, thinking about this look at our 'normal' map of the world ...
How do you think people from Japan, Argentina, Australia or New Zealand feel about their peripheral location on 'our' map? Now the first map looks to make more sense. Here is another version ...
It is from an Australian perspective and it is centred on the Pacific Ocean rather than the Atlantic and it puts the colonial power of Great Britain to the very edge of the map. Is this a political comment?
The other issue raised by this map is ... is this map upside down? How can a sphere have a right way up? I will leave you to ponder that one ...
