Theoretically speaking, maps of the world could point in any direction - there's no specific reason why "towards the North Pole" should be our defining orientation. Even if you add in the discovery of magnets, there's still 4 directions that you could define as being "up" (perpendicular to the magnetic lines, and opposite orientations.)
My question is, why did we pick what we did? Was it just a random choice that we stuck to, or were there more guiding reasons that lead to North being North, and not anything else? What was the thought process of those who were first making maps of the world?
Hi, not discouraging further contributions, but fyi you may be interested in answers in these threads:
/u/khosikulu in Why have cartographers always pictured north as up and south as down?, with further comments in Why do maps universally have north as up? and How did we decide that the North Pole is at the "top" of the Earth and the South Pole at the "bottom"? Couldn't we have oriented ourselves the opposite way?
/u/Valkine in When did it become standard for "north" to be on the top of a map? And why?
/u/qed1 in When did it become common practice to draw maps with North as "up"?