Why is a majority of the world's land mass north of the equator?

Question

Is it just a coincidence or is there a reason?

Answer 1

I would say conicidence and blame it on plate tectonics. At one time the earth was one massive continent known as pangea (That's why it looks like South America fits into Africa like a puzzle). Over millions of years, the continents have drifted apart because of the "plates" that they sit on.
there are 3 types of interactions between the "plates"
1) "Transform boundaries occur where plates slide or, perhaps more accurately, grind past each other along transform faults."
2) "Divergent boundaries occur where two plates slide apart from each other"
3) "Convergent boundaries (or active margins) occur where two plates slide towards each other commonly forming either a subduction zone (if one plate moves underneath the other) or a continental collision (if the two plates contain continental crust). "

This is also what causes earthquakes and volcanoes to erupt.

Answer 2

Indeed coincidence, of reasons Dilbert described already correctly above.
However, if you turn a globe toward a point in New Zealand you will see the so-called "Water Hemisphere". Looking at the globe from this point it shows only 14% of all land on earth, making it appear like it was a planet almost entirely covered by oceans. The only major land bodies to be seen are Australia and Antarctica.
Even its antipodal counterpart, the "Land Hemisphere" with its central point near Nantes, France has, believe it or not, still a significant greater percentage of water to show, even though it contains 86% of all land on earth.
Therefore, since the South Pole lies comparably close to the central point of the "Water Hemisphere", the Southern Hemisphere is the one containing more water than the Northern Hemisphere with its North Pole closer to the central point of the "Land Hemisphere".
Take a globe and check it out, it's interesting to look at!

Answer 3

I think a better way to ask your question would be thus: Why is all the land on the Earth's surface now within about 6,250 miles of the equator and why has it always been this way?

Answer 4

The majority had to be somewhere. The chances of it being equal to the North and South would be miniscule. North just happened to win (if you consider getting the majority of the human populaion winning).

Answer 5

Just the way the convection currents pushed the plates (see theory of continental drift by alfred wegener ) and that the way it went from pangea ( when all land was one).

Answer 6

Global warming.

Hey, what the hell. The GW advocates use it to explain just about every weather phenomenon these days, why not geography too?

Answer 7

Why is the south hogging all the sea water?