North is one of the four cardinal directions, pointing toward the North Pole at the top of Earth. When you look at a map, north is usually at the top. When you face north, east is to your right, west is to your left, and south is behind you.

For thousands of years, travelers found north by looking at the stars. In the Northern Hemisphere, the North Star (Polaris) sits almost directly above the North Pole, barely moving as other stars wheel around it through the night. A compass needle points north because it's pulled by Earth's magnetic field.

North can also describe a region or direction of travel. In the United States, “the North” often refers to states above the Mason-Dixon Line, especially during the Civil War era. When someone says they're heading north for vacation, they mean traveling toward regions in that direction, like going north from Texas to visit Colorado.

The word appears in many familiar phrases: a north wind blows from the north toward the south. The phrase “true north” means the actual direction to the North Pole, and people sometimes use it metaphorically to describe their core values or guiding principles, the things that keep them oriented in life.