Okay, I'll lay myself out for correction/argument/ridicule--
haven't anything better to do just now, anyway.
Max, I am going to respond as though your question is asking why our world is considered right-side-up in maps that have North America, Europe, etc., above Tasmania, NZ,
etc. (In part because I haven't a clue as to where the
labels North and South came from.)
This would seem to be a problem to which the simplest solution may be right: it makes sense to me that it is this
way because not only did the northern hemisphere produce
cultures advanced enough to explore the globe and make maps
first, it produced vaster quantities of explorers/mapmakers.
I envision centuries-ago scenes where they looked at each other and agreed that of course the lands they were familiar with were "above", in all senses, the lands filled
with either uncivilized people, or no people, or at least which did not have representatives in sufficient quantities to make their view prevail. (You-all, don't take me literally on that one.)
I also imagine that early mapmakers in say, Australia, whom I don't actually believe were hanging off the bottom of the earth (!), probably drew maps of their continent with the part we call the South Pole at the top. They just walked/rode "up" and "down" and back and forth across their continent, and became aware of the curvature of the earth
just as the explorers of the opposite hemisphere did. And, to them, the coldest part would be toward the narrower "top".
