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I'm looking for a bit of help understanding what とした means in this sentence describing the UN flag:
この旗は、真ん中に北極を中心とした世界地図が[描]{か}いてあります。
While I can get the gist of the meaning, can someone help explain exactly what とした means here? I googled around a bit, but wasn't really able to figure it out. Especially, it would be great to get an understanding of this grammatical construction so I can use it / recognize it again.
Thanks in advance!
「A を B とする」
is a common set phrase meaning:
"to regard A as B", "to assume A to be B", etc.
There is no "real and logical" center of the world possible on a two-dimentional world map, agreed? Each world map, according to its purpose, simply must regard someplace as the center.
(As a kid growing up in Japan, I never knew why our part of the world was called the "Far East" because on the world maps used in Japan, Japan was always located right in the middle. I was naturally shocked when I saw the Western version of the world map for the first time.)
「この旗{はた}は、真{ま}ん中{なか}に北極{ほっきょく}を中心{ちゅうしん}とした世界地図{せかいちず}が描{か}いてあります。」
On this particular map, the North Pole is in the center because that is what they "decided" to place in the middle. It served its own purpose that way.
"Right in the middle of this banner, a world map is drawn with the North Pole as its center."
