Which direction does the Earth's permanent magnet point and why?

[vsage]

This is a prelab question for a lab I'm supposed to do tomorrow but I feel like I'm so baffled at how simple the question is that I'm afraid to put down an answer for fear of misunderstanding the question:

The Earth's field appears as it were produced by a strong permanent magnet embedded in its core and aligned in the north-south direction. But which end is which? Which way do you think the north end of the Earth's permanent magnet points? Why?

From what I understand the north pole of Earth's magnetic field is only a few hundred miles away from the physical north and the south pole is only a few hundred miles away from the physical south. Which "way" the magnet points would be toward the physical south if I understand the correctly. As to "why" I can't even venture a guess because it's my understanding that the Earth has switched polarity plenty of times so I can't really give a definitive answer. Could someone offer a more clear explanation to this? I'd appreciate it.

 

[Janitor]

Look at the paragraph near the bottom of http://www.tpub.com/neets/book1/chapter1/1g.htm which starts out, "The fact that a..."

They probably don't want you to be worrying too much about past polarity flips of the Earth's field.

 

[vsage]

Thanks for clearing that up. I knew the question had to be counterintuitive just by the fact that it was a lab question.