What I found cool was that atlas makers would put towns that never existed on their maps so they can sue other map makers for copying.

Fun fact: The famous Blue Marble photo taken by the crew of Apollo 17 in 1972 was actually taken “upside down” with the southern hemisphere on top. NASA flipped the image to make it align with our normal expectations of a map.

The fascinating thing about the "South-up" world map is how it really shows how comparatively little land there is in the Southern Hemisphere. The Atlantic and Indian Oceans end up just looking like large gulfs in a vast northern ocean.

8:20 Atlas Pro actually has a video on these mountains called "Finding the Source of the Nile river." and he mentions these mountains a lot so I recommend it if you're interested in learning about them.

Fun fact: before rail, maps often strongly highlighted and named rivers because they were the main method of mass transport. You could clearly see the difference for example, between a map of England from the 16th century and one from the 19th or 20th century.

Not ONE mention of the Earth being FLAT. Smh RealLifeLore Seriously tho, love your content, you're a great inspiration to Geo nerds everywhere!

I remember seeing the South on top map maybe 5 or 6 years ago and ever since then I’ve pointed it out to others. Interesting way of tweaking one’s POV :)

12:03 it doesn't make the northern hemisphere look larger than the southern, but polar regions look larger than equatorial ones. However, there is more land in the northern hemisphere, so this is technically true

So basically most of the maps dont lie, it's just that people cant interpret them correctly

The problem with any 2d map of a 3d sphere is that there is no truly "accurate" was of portraying it, people love to "correct" the map but all they're doing is changing what things they're willing to sacrifice for the sake of making the map.

Fun face: for most of history south was up. Ancient Egyptians had south up (hence northern Egypt is lower Egypt), the first ever map of the world was done by an Arab geographer in service of the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire and it had the south up, the Chinese too had the south up.

12:03 - wrong, the Mercator projection doesn't enlarge the Northern hemisphere vs the Southern hemisphere - it enlarges land near the poles and compresses land near the equator (it just happens that more land in the northern hemisphere is closer to the pole than vice versa)

I love this channel, geopolitics and demographics. You should do a video of the Darvaza gas crater in Turkmenistan. Edit: holy cow, never thought I’d get 167 likes and a heart by Reallifelore.

Maps actually don't lie to people. People just don't know how to read them, and don't know what those lines on the maps are for. Not sure why sooooo many YT channels are on this "Maps lie to us" kick this past month, but it's really quite annoying.

I'd love to hear more about this mystical Kong mountain range and how it came to be. As for the London Underground map, credit where credit is due, that map is so super easy to read and understand, even though it looks super intimidating at first glance. So whoever designed it, hats off to them. They did a bang up job.

On the other hand.. The solar system rotates on a plane. If you plot it in three dimensions there is a z axis that would correlate to up. Not only that, the solar system itself rotates on the galactic plane of the Milky Way in roughly the same orientation depending on the axial tilt of the earth at any given time. Even though all of these are objects in space we have to use some relative orientation to designate their orientation. Think galactic size is as good as any to say: This is up, this is down. That doesn't change until you hit Andromeda.

I don’t understand why the Mercador projection is often portrayed as some elaborate propaganda conspiracy, but it’s just like… no? It turns out having a map whose primary purpose is to keep directions consistent with the real world is useful lol

I mean, North isn't lying... It's the Magnetic position of the northern pole of the planet. Sure the map could be flipped, but a compass would still point true north towards the North Pole of the planet.

I work in the cartography field and thank you so much for sharing this. Clients often don't know that what you show on a map is what you want to see.

I was doubtful when clicking this video because I thought it'd only go over the mercator projection issue, but was pleasantly surprised when a lot more was mentioned. Keep up the good work.

If your watching this don't ever stop uploading please. We really appreciate your work.

Reallifelore has to be one of the best channels in KZfaq. I've watched him for years

13:28 its not "just hard to show an accurate portrayal..." its impossible... you can either keep the angles/directions correct/true to reality OR the lengths coming from a sphere going into a 2D plane. if anyone thinks its possible, go talk to the guys from the nobel prize

Heya RLL! I love your videos and I am very happy to see this! Thank you so much!

As someone with a world map tattooed on their thigh, good luck actually getting a correct map on anything but a sphere

I was watching one of your videos and you uploaded this

4:00 I remember being completely misled by T Mobile's (and its MVNOs') coverage map multiple times. I can point to at least 15 different spots, roads or even entire neighborhoods where TMobile boasted good indoor coverage to not even having a single bar on the road. There were times I had to drive longer to my work to avoid being disconnected from the conference call I was in. Once I turned on hazard and waited at street corner like a creep, as the call would get disconnected the moment I make the turn. This was before the Sprint network integration though so I believe things should have improved at least a little bit.

The recent map videos have been so good! Awesome videos for a geography nerd!

This was a pretty fun one! Thank you guys for the interesting and informative video! Stay well out there everybody, and God bless you, friends! :)

thanks for posting all of these videos! ive probably watched like at least a third of them congrats on 5 mil subs

Amazing video man, I’ve been watching you for a while and you create such articulate, Captivating content

You know it’s a good day when RealLifeLore uploads

Once again great video real life lore

I just gotta say, it's weird that we've switched to saying "misinformation and disinformation" when we used to call it either a "mistake or a lie". "Misinformation" implies that it's someone's fault for being mis-informed or not knowing in the first place (as if that is a moral wrong) and "disinformation" implies that you are knowingly propagating false information (something we used to call 'telling a lie' in the 'before times'). I'm not all about grammar or spelling, honestly I'd much rather do anything else, I just noticed that the phrasing we've switched to in the past few years has shifted the meaning. Where before it seemed to imply someone either accidentally or purposely spread false information as opposed to now where the phrasing implies that the individual sharing information is responsible for any information they tell regardless if it was an accident or intended (like if you unknowingly said something incorrect, you're on the hook for the rest of your life). Ultimately this new phrasing places an unrealistic expectation for perfection with knowledge of current events, not even Giga-geniuses with 9000+ IQ's can make mistakes with information. Not saying there isn't a time and place for the phrasing, but if you're just jogging with a friend, having coffee with a coworker, or posting something to social media, it doesn't really seem appropriate to assign the same level of responsibility as you would a doctor or engineer.

I love your channel! Its entertaining and informative

Absolutely hilarious that you make this video, and two days later there's a Super Bowl commercial by T-Mobile that says "These maps don't lie"

In the US Military I was taught, in day one of map reading class as an FO, that "map makers are liars." And thats a direct quote. 👍

I would love to see a video about how the tectonic plates will move in the future, and how geographical features will change over the next million years or so

The north being up thing is what always screws with me even to this day. My windows face almost directly south, and thus when I think if my town, I think south side up

I like how the map at 10:03 names the place we call San Francisco today "Port de François Drake" i.e. Francis Drake Port. Lots of recognizable US cities on the east coast too.

Hasn't this topic been explored a million times already?

The reason they mark them red or blue is because you can't have a candidate that is 40% Democrat and 60% Republican. Win or lose.

6:33 here's a wild idea Murica, just let the person with the most vote win(?) not that electoral vote non-sense

Dude... your modern conflicts series on Nebula is absolutely amazing!! Thank you so much for sharing the information with us, since I didn't actually know _MOST_ of the things about Aleppo, or the Syrian civil war! Anyone who hasn't seen it, should absolutely watch! It's real cheap to get Nebula, and the series as a whole is worth it all on it's own! There are many, many more videos in the series than just that one too... not to mention the slew of other creators on the platform that released either extended or exclusive videos to the platform that they don't post on KZfaq (for various reasons).

Never even enjoyed geography as a subject but somehow real life lore makes it more interesting!

I've been interested in maps ever since I was born. I draw them at times, even if they're fake to at least get my brain going... I think the closest to a "true" map is the Eckert IV Projection made by Max Eckert in 1906.

i love ur vids they feed me the most relevant information i love

I have one of the mercator maps shown here. Johnson’s Mercator map of 1862. I’m going to check for the mountains in Africa and the island off of Mexico. Awesome videos!

I was interested in seeing a Mercator style map but instead of being true at the equator, its true at the prime and antimeridians. I think this is the Gauss Kruger projection, or the transverse Mercator, though for some reason I couldn't figure out it's not squared off like the Mercator. Maybe I'm too dumb to understand

10:42 RealLifeLore teasing the beginning of his rap career

In London, the rough distance between Heathrow T3 and Hammersmith is 13mi. The distance between Beckton and Barking on the east side of the city is only 2mi. However, on the London Tube map, the distance between the two respective sets of stations is identical.

Love all your content! You should do a video on the FM Diversion project. It's the biggest water diversion project in North America!!

"North up / south down" is something people agreed upon for the sake of convenience. Same as how we have agreed upon what letter "A" should look like and what sound should be associated with it. Yes, it's all a matter of perspective, but it's a useful subjectivity. So let's not dismantle the academic habits, just because of some stupid need to sound more inclusive.

Every atlas I had in school (80’s and 90’s) showed a number of different map projections and their uses right in the beginning of the book and almost every classroom had a globe. This whole thing about the Mercator projection being taught as the standard world image in Western classrooms is completely foreign to me.

I think it explains why Mercator projection isn't used in my country that often - we aren't into sea navigation

You should do a video about Colombia geography and see why people is so different in the country depending in the region where they are

This was excellent. Thanks for the seemingly never ending awesome content.

I do kinda understand the North=Up perspective. While there is no "better" hemisphere, the vast majority of the human population lives in the north. The northern hemisphere also has the majority of landmass. Also, the top/bottom division makes geometric sense in relation to the Earth's axial tilt and the orbital plane around the sun.

Vids just so consistently bomb love it!

Every video debunking misinformation is a good video, but this one is just great

I remember first having my preconceptions of North=Up shattered when I found out that in the days of Ancient Egypt, Upper Egypt was south, Lower Egypt was North.

If you shake your screen at around 5:13 you'll see the blue areas move Idk it's probably just me being sleep deprived

I for some reason loved this video and found it incredibly interesting

Also, to compound the arbitrary direction of "North = Up", the vertical centerline of the map (The Prime Meridian iirc) is also arbitrarily chosen. I believe Johnny Harris has a video on this, which is more likely to be correct than me, but it was decided to run through Britain out of respect for the incredible naval control they possessed at the time, for the convenience of their many navigators. I believe it runs directly through the museum that houses a bunch of other unit defining objects, like the kilogram (until recently).

14:40 You forgot to mention, that Australia is using this "upside-down" map.

Yes, direction is relative. However, the Earth has a magnetic field that magnets will point toward, or be pulled toward, a specific point on the Earth which is near the north pole. This is how a compass works. Not to mention that the Earth also rotates on a fixed axis with top and bottom points that hardly move, the north and south poles. The magnetic field doesn't fully align with the axis of rotation but for navigation purposes are still usable. So yes, north and south have arbitrary meaning and are a matter of perspective, but there is some science behind the choosing of which arbitrary side of the globe is the top and which is the bottom.

Surprisingly good video for once. Well done.

RLL makes that most enjoyable content bro

Is there actually any evidence that during the days of empire Europeans liked the fact that they looked larger on the map compared to Africa etc? To me that sounds like internet age misinformation. Surely you want you empire to appear as large as possible compared to the home nation. The North at the top on the other hand may have contributed to this.

So does our perspective of seeing Earth’s north and south also extend to how we see the entire universe? Could the entire plane be viewed just the same from upside down, but we’ll always interpret the way we currently do, due only to how our early map makers decided what was north and south?

This is a great video, exploring a topic which needs to be talked about much more than it is. Euro/American-centrism is reinforced by the absurd malproportioned Mercader projection maps.

Love your content keep it up♥

Just as a note, it's always been my understanding that the red blue map was more to show how the volume of the US was red, rather than the population. I've seen a similar chart with 3D height maps of the population of each county that demonstrated this pretty well.

0:40 I love how opposed to saying "do your own research" we all are nowadays lmao

Worth noting, at the time of the 1500s expedition in California, what is now the Salton Sea was an actual lake, near its high-water mark. Those Spanish sailors likely went up the gulf and into the lake, called Lake Cahuilla.

I can’t believe maps would lie to me, I am literally crying and shaking.

I'm still impressed with ancient people making maps without aerial or satellite view.

As a guy moving into a rural area, I appreciate this info. The granularity of cell coverage still feels like 1992 if you live near mountains...

Everyday that RLL uploads is a good day

It shows how much work and research RealLifelore puts in his videos. And the quality of content is just amazing

But why does the thumbnail look EXACTLY like my map???

I moved to England from US 1.5 years ago. The first time I went to London and saw that tube map I went cross eyed. I tried to envision it being laid out on an actual map. It hurt my brain

I just wanted to say thank you for uploading your latest video on Russia vs. Ukraine on Nebula. It was very well broken down.

14:35 the world of Attack on Titans 😂

"Human agency is subject to investigation and analysis, which it is the mission of understanding to apprehend, criticize, influence, and judge. Above all, critical thought does not submit to state power or to commands to join in the ranks marching against one or another approved enemy. Rather than the manufactured clash of civilizations, we need to concentrate on the slow working together of cultures that overlap, borrow from each other, and live together in far more interesting ways than any abridged or inauthentic mode of understanding can allow. But for that kind of wider perception we need time and patient and skeptical inquiry, supported by faith in communities of interpretation that are difficult to sustain in a world demanding instant action and reaction" - Edward W. Said,

Fantastic video!

This video opened my eyes about the accuracy of maps.

This is just case-example for why it's important to fact check and double-confirm everything, especially when you see it in the form of a meme on social media

Awesome video! One tiny thing, 12:02 - it shows countries both in the Northern and Sothern hemispheres larger than countries closer to the equator. O7

3:30 when I was in middle school I wondered where the best place on campus to get signal was and so I looked at the signal map and it said the whole area was getting full coverage even though I barely had a bar even outside

The Mercator projection is why I always try to use globe maps (usually Google Earth) when online. Tho sometimes it doesn't work when I need to see all of earth at once, instead of continent by continent.

These are more due to misunderstandings from the reader's part rather than deceit from the writer's side. Let's take the first example of the map of the Australian wildfires. "A rendered visualization 3D image of Australia, shot from a NASA satellite". The poster wrote this poorly, but this is what I think they meant: 'From a satellite' is about the 3D image. 'A rendered visualization' is something completely separate--that's what the artist did. Basically a visualization of the bushfires on top of a 3D map of Australia. Nobody lied here. The issue is that people misunderstood. Granted, it could have been described better, but the original post was not 'misinformation'. And second, the red vs blue map. Again, not misinformation and not a lie. It shows the absolute values from the counties, which counties gave votes (correction: which counties the vote of the average voter gave) to who. If you want an accurate portrayal of the ratio of red vs blue votes per county, that's a different map entirely.

He missed the maps without New Zealand.

14:10 we have a famous quote in french about north and south that says : North or South, that doesn't mean anything ! Depending on how we are turned it changes everything

Cool that he mentioned Catalhoyuk. I lived in Konya for a couple months several years ago.

Thank you RLL for introducing the importance of Critical Thinking and how misinformation starts.👍

Geographers in 1700s: California is an island! Geographers in 1800s: Nope. Geographers in 2200 after inevitable earthquake: Woah, California's an island!

Nice video keep up💪

13:54 growing up in the northern hemisphere i never thought about it until I visited Uruguay in 2019 and found this magnet that says "our north is your south" something like that. mindblowing

As someone designing map for a living, this is great content, thank you!