Eli5 How can one tell where south, north, east or west is without using a compass, looking at a map or already knowing?

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Eli5 How can one tell where south, north, east or west is without using a compass, looking at a map or already knowing?

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7 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

In the northern hemisphere, TV satellite dishes all point south.

Also in the northern hemisphere, the North Star is the end star in the Little Dipper’s handle. Two of the stars in the Big Dipper’s bowl point to it.

[How to find the North Star with the Big Dipper](https://earthsky.org/tonight/use-big-dipper-to-find-polaris-the-north-star)

Anonymous 0 Comments

Regardless of whether you are in the northern or southern hemisphere, the sun will always rise in the east and set in the west. The sun, the stars, and the moon rise in the east and always set in the west because the earth spins towards the east.Aug

Anonymous 0 Comments

The position of the sun. Rises in the east sets in west.

Anonymous 0 Comments

So, up above different markers (sun/stars) are used, but FUN FACT, some seafaring civilizations who lived at sea and relied on knowing these directions for every facet of everyday life actually had no words for things like left and right, but would use north/south. They had a better internal sense or cardinal direction than direction related to self. So an example would be like “hey son, can you pass me that book? No, not that one, the north one.”

Anonymous 0 Comments

***The sun rises in the east and sets in the west.*** Memorize that and you’ll always know.

If you’re facing east (toward the sunrise), then you know north is to your left, south is to your right, and west is behind you.

Anonymous 0 Comments

To find North, you need to give some form of reference point that you know the direction of to use as a reference.

The most obvious of these is the sun – it rises in the East and sets in the West, so by knowing roughly what time it is you can get an approximate direction.
You can refine this if you have access to a watch – in the northern hemisphere, if point the hour hand at the sun, a line drawn halfway between the hour hand and 12oclock will point South (if you are in the southern hemisphere, this will point North).

At night you can also use the stars – you can very accurately plot your position using the stars, a couple of tools and some knowledge, but more reasonably, by learning to find a few obvious constellations and a few stars in particular like the pole stars, you can get a rough direction.

You often hear of traditional methods like looking at the way plants grow and similar, but honestly these are generally so unreliable they aren’t worth considering.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Let’s say society collapses tomorrow. From the ashes a warlord rises up and enslaves you. Being a quirky warlord of a new post apocalyptic society they decide they are a living god, and as everyone knows a living god needs a pyramid. Just like the pyramids of Egypt he wants the sides to point exactly north, south, east and west.

Now you could just accept that the sun rises in the east and work from that, but that’s not nearly precise enough for a god king’s pyramid. The north star points directly north so maybe you could find that. The only problem is that during the apocalypse the continents shifted around and now you’re in the southern hemisphere, the north star isn’t available. Times running out, the god king wants their pyramid and they’ve already killed the last three architects. So what do you do?

Well luckily there is a way to find the exact directions with a great deal of accuracy no matter where you are on earth.

Find some celestial object, it can be the moon, the sun, or any star.

Pick some comfortable spot that you don’t mind sitting at for a whole day.

Wait for the object to start to rise above the horizon. Grab a stick and stick it in the ground to mark this direction to where this object rose.

Now wait for about 12 hours for the object to set. (Perhaps read a lightly burned book, or maybe just sit back and take in the sight of the charred hellscape that was once earth)

Take another stick and mark the spot the object went down.

Now you have three points. The place you were sitting and looking from, the place of the first stick, and the place of the second stick. This makes an angle. If you draw a line cutting that angle in half it will point exactly north or south (Depending on what hemisphere you are in).

Now you’ve just got to build a pyramid, good luck.