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The World Turned Upside Down
It needn't be a Eurocentric world

A challenging version of the Hobo-Dyer Projection with Australia top left! How does such a simple thing as reversing the poles influence your impression of what's important?

The Hobo-Dyer Projection (HDP) belongs to the family of Cylindrical Equal Area projections in which the latitude and longitude lines form a rectangular grid. Other projections in this family include the Lambert, Gall, Behrmann, Edwards and Peters. The HDP retains qualities of the other equal area cylindrical projections, but is more visually satisfying. Commissioned by ODT, Inc., created by British cartographer, Mick Dyer, the map was derived by modifying the 1910 Behrmann projection.

Behrmann placed the standard parallels at 30° north and south. On the HDP map, the 'cylinder' is assumed to wrap round the globe and cut through it at 37½° north and south. In order to preserve the equal area property the shapes of the landmasses become progressively flattened towards the poles, but shapes between 45° north and south are well preserved.

So why turn it upside down? Well, why not? It is completely artificial that we have North at the top of a map. The convention only began a few centuries ago when Northern hemisphere, European navigators started using the North star and the magnetic compass. Before that, the top of the map was to the East (which is where the word orientation comes from). And it’s a great way to shake people up and help them question their assumptions.

840 x 530 mm, laminated.

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