Why East Has No Endpoint
On a globe, east is a direction around Earth, not a path that eventually runs into a boundary. If you keep traveling east, you keep moving around the planet’s curved surface and return to places you have already passed. The same is true of west: each is a way of going around, not a destination at the end of a line.
The Map Makes It Look Different
A flat map has edges because the globe has to be spread onto a rectangle. Cartographers choose where to cut that surface; often the cut runs through the Pacific, splitting the ocean between the map’s left and right sides. That seam can make the map’s edges look like the ends of the world, but crossing it means continuing across the same ocean on the globe.
There is no single point where east turns into west, either. At any location, east points along the surface toward the right-hand direction of a compass, while west points the opposite way. Keep following east and your route eventually brings you around the planet; the labels describe your direction of travel, not a border you can arrive at.
A Route Depends on Its Starting Point
The shortest route between two distant places may curve across a flat map, because it follows the globe’s surface. But whether that route counts as eastbound depends on where it starts and how it travels. The map’s edge is a choice made for the page; the planet itself has no eastern edge to reach.
