Cardinal Directions

Cardinal directions are four primary compass points that people use to describe location and movement on Earth's surface: north, south, east, and west. These directions are based on Earth's rotation and the apparent movement of the sun and stars, forming a shared system independent of the observer's location.

North and south mark the two poles of Earth's axis (both the magnetic and geographic poles, which differ slightly). East and west are positioned on opposite sides of the sphere: the sun appears from the east and sets in the west. The four directions are spaced 90 degrees apart, dividing the full circle of 360 degrees into equal sections.

How to determine direction

The simplest way to determine direction is by the sun: sunrise and sunset. At night, the north can be located using the North Star (Polaris) when in the Northern Hemisphere, while the south can be found by the Southern Cross (Crux) in the Southern Hemisphere. The magnetic compass points to magnetic north, which does not exactly align with geographic north; this difference is called declination. Today, satellite-based systems such as GPS provide directional information without requiring a compass.

Intermediate directions

Between the four cardinal directions lie four intermediate directions: northeast, southeast, southwest, and northwest. Subdividing these further produces eight additional directions, such as north-northeast, a system that led to the 32-point compass rose used by sailors. Modern navigation systems typically use degrees: 0° north, 90° east, 180° south, 270° west.

Cultural and religious uses

Many societies have built their daily routines around the cardinal directions. Muslims orient their prayer toward the qibla (the direction of Mecca), calculated from any point on Earth. Farmers and pastoralists use directions to track wind patterns and rainfall seasons. In Somali, the directions are commonly referred to as north, south, east (or sunrise), and west (or sunset).

Maps

In modern cartography, north is usually placed at the top of a map, east to the right, south at the bottom, and west to the left. This is a convention rather than a natural law, and it is a historical practice that arose from the use of the compass and European maps. Earlier maps from other cultures placed east or south at the top.