2781: Red and Black Seas: Color and Cardinal Direction Aug 1, 2024

Historically, and found in many disparate cultures around the globe, there have been associations between cardinal directions, and colors, namely

Red = South

Black = North

White = West

Green/Blue = East

Yellow = Center

This is not to say that people would say “you need to travel red for 10 miles” but rather it shows up in a plethora of place names. For instance, both the names of the Red Sea and the Black Sea come from the perspective of the Greek and those in the Near East, along with the White Sea in Wester Russia. Belarus literally means ‘white Russia’ with there historically having been others including ‘black Russia’ referring to the Baltic states to the north. 

The Mongol hordes were named for colors relative to where they were: Blue, White, and of course the Golden Horde.

Of course, this is not always so cut-and-dry. In China, there is the Yellow River that flows eastward into the Yellow Sea was the most vital, central waterway of early China, but whether this is related to this historic tradition, or whether this is a reference to the water’s murkiness—or possibly some combination—would be hard to prove on its own.