Why is there "west" and "east"?

[Felya]

It if it 100km west from london, you can turn back and its 100km to east now

Not from your starting location. In the above, London is the point from which it goes east and west.

[aattkc]

Because when I'm travelling -----> relative to the Prime Meridian as it appears on a map, I need something to call that direction for practical purposes.

(I understand your point (i.e. the need for direction relative to current location)

Just curious if "Eastern" countries are closer to the east of prime meridian and "Western" countries are closer to be counted as west of prime meridian. Doesn't Greenwich count as "Western"?

Or does anyone refer to prime meridian as "Central"?

[Deleted]

But i mean when we are talking about "western countries" etc

Western countries are eastern countries to western countries and vice versa. USA is far east to my country but also far west, so take your pick.

[Cthulhu 2020]

That does not make any sense. Since world is a sphere, any part of the world is as much "west" as it is "east". There are no objective "western world".

London is considered the Prime Meridian, or the center of the world. Everything around that longitude and to the west of that is the western world. Everything to the east is eastern.

It's an arbitrary "center of the world" but if there wasn't a consensus on a relative center point, everyone would be using different ones and they'd all be confused.

It's called common point of reference, and really isn't that hard to understand.

[Spectral]

By the way, claiming that there's "no such thing" as East and West is about as practically useful as arguing that we shouldn't state that the Earth revolves around the sun, since that's also (technically) a matter of perspective.

[Deleted]

World is not that flat map known as "world map". If you go to other hemisphere and make map out of that, america is suddenly east side of the map.

[Elegiac]

By the way, claiming that there's "no such thing" as East and West is about as practically useful as arguing that we shouldn't state that the Earth revolves around the sun, since that's also (technically) a matter of perspective.

Orbiting is a known mechanical phenomenon :P

[Deleted]

Agreed! Let's use Rimward and Hubward. Oh wait...

[Elegiac]

World is not that flat map known as "world map". If you go to other hemisphere and make map out of that, america is suddenly east side of the map.

You are conflating the geographical definitions of "east" and "west" with their cultural definitions.

[brirrspliff]

Earth is a sphere, so there is no such thing as "west" or "east", also the other wind directions are non existent aswell.

this is a little bit ignorant from you to say, but on the most part it's just plain uneducated and wrong. i'll give you a few facts. if the earth was a sphere that is completely still and there was no external "reference system" (a universe around us), you'd be right.

but:

1) the earth is rotating around an axis
2) the earth is orbiting around the sun (and thus, moves through "space" inside our universe)
3) we have a magnetical north and south pole

and even more:

4) we cartograph the world in 2D (mostly only the surface of the earth), so you automatically have 2 directions (cartesic coordinates)

so if you take all those facts, it should be clear why we have north, south, east and west.

[klaps_05]

western and eastern when in regards to countries refers to their position in relation to Greenwich Meridian.

[Cthulhu 2020]

World is not that flat map known as "world map". If you go to other hemisphere and make map out of that, america is suddenly east side of the map.

If one person's eastern hemisphere is someone else's western hemisphere, and one says west and the other thinks east, it's going to confuse a lot of people. Common point of reference. It helps everyone understand things much easier. It's not that hard of a concept.

[Deleted]

Only thing that really makes sense is coordinates, you can create a grid around earth and give every grid a unique value. So you can say that I need to go to grid A534B345 for an example. But you cant say that we need to go "west" because "west" is all over the sphere.

[Dezerte]

Since you're probably being obtuse on purpose, I want to add another question that will blow your mind; what is north of the North Pole?

[Elegiac]

Only thing that really makes sense is coordinates, you can create a grid around earth and give every grid a unique value. So you can say that I need to go to grid A534B345 for an example. But you cant say that we need to go "west" because "west" is all over the sphere.

West takes four characters to type as opposed to eight. Which is simpler when they accomplish basically the same function?

[nextormento]

Orbiting is a known mechanical phenomenon :P

Ignoring other celestial bodies, both Earth and Sun revolve around their center of mass -which simply happens to be inside the sun-.

[Elegiac]

Since you're probably being obtuse on purpose, I want to add another question that will blow your mind; what is north of the North Pole?

Which North Pole?

[Dezerte]

Only thing that really makes sense is coordinates, you can create a grid around earth and give every grid a unique value. So you can say that I need to go to grid A534B345 for an example. But you cant say that we need to go "west" because "west" is all over the sphere.

West is always west. "Let's go west" tells me exactly where I should go.

[Deleted]

Since you're probably being obtuse on purpose, I want to add another question that will blow your mind; what is north of the North Pole?

"north" and "south" are concrete directions in a sphere. If you cross northpole, you can turn back to get to northpole again

[Deleted]

West is always west. "Let's go west" tells me exactly where I should go.

Its not. West is different direction for another guy on another side of the sphere.