Three silk maps, such as Topographic Map of the South of Changsha, unearthed from the No.3 Han Tomb in Mawangdui, Changsha, Hunan Province, were identified by archaeology, and the directions of these maps in the Western Han Dynasty were also up, down and north.
Later, most ancient maps were from south to north. For example, Cheng Dachang's Ten Volumes of Lu Yong in Southern Song Dynasty has 32 maps, 29 of which are from south to north.
In fact, the direction on the ancient map is not very fixed. In principle, ancient maps in China are from south to north, but not all ancient maps are like this, and some ancient maps even go up to the west and down to the east.
The ancient maps of China were from north to south, because China people used to sit north and south, so when they looked at the map, one side was north and the other side was south, so the maps were mostly from north to south.
Furthermore, this formula is closely related to the river map in the Book of Changes, which is the basis for choosing geomantic omen, and involves the orientation of the human body, which is upper yang and lower yin, north, left yang, east, right yin and west.
In ancient China, attention was paid to seeking the law from the inside, and the combination of river maps with maps, geography and personal orientation was itself the embodiment of the unity of man and nature.
Summary: Geographically, we China people live in the northern hemisphere. The ancients believed that China was the center of the world, and China's "China" came from it.
The sun they see during the day is always in our south, whether it rises or sets in the west. At night, they look at the stars and look up at the Big Dipper, a symbol of the emperor.
The ancients lived facing south and sat facing south has become a habit, so it is reflected in the map as up and down.