A cardinal point is one of the four main directions: north, south, east, and west. These directions form the foundation of all navigation and map-reading. When you look at a compass, the needle points toward magnetic north, one of the cardinal points. The others are arranged around it: east to your right, west to your left, and south behind you if you're facing north.

The word cardinal means principal or fundamental, and these four directions are indeed fundamental to finding your way anywhere on Earth. Sailors crossing oceans, pilots flying planes, hikers exploring wilderness trails, and even kids finding their way around a new neighborhood all rely on cardinal points.

Between the cardinal points lie the ordinal or intercardinal directions: northeast, southeast, southwest, and northwest. But the four cardinal points remain the anchors of direction. When someone says “head due north,” they mean travel straight along that cardinal point without veering toward northeast or northwest.

Ancient civilizations built monuments aligned to cardinal points, like the Egyptian pyramids, which face almost perfectly north, south, east, and west. Even without modern technology, people throughout history understood that these four directions provided the essential framework for understanding position and movement in the world.