Yup. There are even maps that had the primary cardinal direction as East or West.

But why the South as North?

Advances in civilization, writing, technology, and maps, was developed north of the equator in the northern hemisphere. That's where most of the advances in the last 3-4 thousands years has taken place. From Egypt, to Sumer, to Greece, to Rome, to China, to the Arabian enlightenment and the Renaissance enlightenment, it all came from the norther hemisphere.

What does this matter when talking about maps?

The sun is the life force, the life giver, the light, the truth, the high consciousness, etc. There is a lot of symbolism around the sun. The sun is extremely important for many cultures.

When the sun moves across the sky, what part of the sky is it in? Well if we don't have compass directions determined yet, this is when we create them, but not based on true north direcitons.

Where is the sun in the northern hemisphere? Well when you're above the Tropic of Cancer, looking at the sun at anytime, it's pointing in a certain hemispherical direction. That direction, is "north". All other compass directions relate to the north direction given. The sun gets up on one side, and sets on the other side, but all the while it doesn't cross over that imaginary zenith point to the northern hemisphere.

The sun is never above the zenith in the sky going towards the north. The sun from the northern hemisphere, for the most part, especailly above the Topic of Cancer, is below the zenith going towards the south.

This is why north was south through a symbolic belief reasoning with the sun's importance. It can also tie to "God", and "Holy Lands" being towards the south in some areas, or the east in others, or even the west for other cultures, and their maps were directed towards those "holy" belief centers. Like is the case with some Eruopean nations and Jerusalem orienting their maps Eastward. Until the compass was discovered, deciding where a compass pointed was arbitrary.

Here is an example, called the Al-Idrisi's World Map (1154).:

<center><img src="http://i.imgur.com/GIhNTVR.jpg" /></center>

And here it is inverted, so you can see how it  makes more sense as a recognized geographical area of Europe and the Middle East:

<center><img src="http://i.imgur.com/Co93muD.jpg" /></center>

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[Image sources: [1](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Al-Idrisi%27s_world_map.JPG), [2](http://www.1001inventions.com/maps)]

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@krnel
2015-11-16, 10am