Why are most dungeon entrances on the south?

[Delta]

I'm a bit OCD-ish, and a long-time player, but I've realized that sometimes now I have difficulty picturing dungeon entrances that aren't on the south side (i.e., bottom of the map). Part of why this occured to me is that I started designing an adventure in flowchart format, and realized that the top-down standard flowchart is opposite the south-north dungeon designs that I see more than anything else.

So maybe I'm thinking mostly of classic Gygaxian adventures, but consider the following.
Gygax South entrances -- G1, G3, D1, D2, D3, T1, T2, S3, S4, WG4, WG6 (sort-of).
Non-Gygax South entrances -- A1, A3, B1, S2.
Non-south entrances in same series -- A2, A4, B2, G2, S1, WG5. (Only 6/21)

It definitely seems like the majority of classic dungeons have entrances on the south side, much more than the one-quarter you would expect if it was chosen at random. Why do you think that is?
- Is it more threatening to have the "weight" of unknown danger areas above you as you enter on the map?
- Does it tend to represent where players are sitting at the table with respect to the DM and the encounter areas he controls?
- Something else entirely?

 

[Lorgrom]

It probably has to do more with how people just design things. You start a design from the base (bottom of something) up.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

It represents our orientation to the dungeon itself. As I look at a piece of paper with a map of the dungeon it is as if I stand before the entrance to that dungeon physically with the dungeon branching out before me. If the piece of paper has the entrance at the top (the north), then to orient myself I have to turn it upside down or at least reorient it that way mentally.

 

[Simia Saturnalia]

It represents our orientation to the dungeon itself. As I look at a piece of paper with a map of the dungeon it is as if I stand before the entrance to that dungeon physically with the dungeon branching out before me. If the piece of paper has the entrance at the top (the north), then to orient myself I have to turn it upside down or at least reorient it that way mentally.

This, I believe.

 

[szilard]

Now I must design a dungeon in which you enter at the middle...

-Stuart

 

[Lorgrom]

Now I must design a dungeon in which you enter at the middle...

-Stuart

chuckling, The Ruins of Undermoutain did that. The main entrance is a shaft from above.

 

[Doug McCrae]

That's a really interesting point. Out of the seven dungeons I've mapped recently, one has a top entrance, one in the middle (like Undermountain) and the rest all start at the bottom.

Quite often I don't put north at the top, presumably because the urge to start at the bottom is so strong it overrides that mapping rule.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

Now I must design a dungeon in which you enter at the middle...

-Stuart

Back when I used the 1E DMG random map generator, I always put the entrance in the center of the map.

 

[Umbran]

No, no, no!

It's because the danger always comes from the north. The orc hordes, the barbarians sacking Rome, the Picts coming over Hadrian's Wall, or whoever. They always come from the north!

This is why in WWII, the Normandy invasion was so successful. From the German point of view, the danger was coming from the south, something that before this time was tactically incomprehensible...

Okay, okay, I admit it. I got nothin'

 

[JDJblatherings]

Most dugeons are built to have a nice southern exposure, they can get a litl eof that natural lightign a few feet futher down the corridor in the winter months and much mor eof the day if the dungeon entrance is facign south. I suppose MerricB would have most of his homebrew dugneons with a northern exposure to get the same effect in the land of oz.