Interactive world history map timeline

The world in 500 BC

Every border from 4000 BC to 2026, one year at a time. Drag the timeline to explore.

Loading the map of 500 BC…
▶ snapshot —

The World in 500 BC the year Carthage colours Sardinia

The brown that fills the middle of the map is the Persian empire of Darius I, the largest state anyone has yet built, running from Macedonia and Egypt to the Indus. Darius rules it through about twenty provinces, a royal road from Sardis to Susa with fresh horses every day's ride, a gold coin with his own picture, and a new palace city rising at Persepolis. West of him the Greek cities are small and quarrelsome; Athens has just voted itself a democracy after throwing out its tyrant, and Sparta leads the towns of the Peloponnese. Rome has expelled its kings and signed its first treaty with Carthage, whose purple covers the coast of Africa, western Sicily and now Sardinia. In China the Zhou king reigns in name while Jin, Qi, Chu, Wu and Yue fight for real, and a scholar named Confucius holds office in the small state of Lu. In India sixteen kingdoms share the Ganges plain, Magadha the strongest, and the Buddha is teaching in their towns.

10Years this map covers
2,700 kmRoyal Road, Sardis to Susa
20Persian provinces, about
509 BCRome throws out its kings
508 BCAthens votes for democracy
16Great kingdoms of India
51Age of Confucius
1stRome-Carthage treaty, 509 BC
5Great states in China

From 510 BC to 500 BC

On the map Carthage's purple spreads over Sardinia this year. The island's coast towns and mines have been Carthaginian for a generation, and the map now shows the whole island in its colour. Persia, the Greek cities and the states of China are unchanged.

  • πŸ‘‘510 BC Hippias, the last tyrant of Athens, is driven out with Spartan help. The Greek city of Croton wipes rich Sybaris off the map in southern Italy the same year.
  • πŸ›οΈ509 BC Rome expels its king Tarquin and becomes a republic run by two elected consuls. Its first treaty with Carthage draws the line between their trading waters.
  • πŸ—³οΈ508 BC Cleisthenes reorders Athens into ten tribes and gives the assembly of citizens the final word. The Athenians call the new order demokratia.
  • βš”οΈ506 BC Wu's army marches up the Han river and sacks Ying, the capital of Chu. Chu recovers with help from Qin, but the balance in the south has shifted.
  • πŸ“œ501 BC Confucius is made a magistrate in his home state of Lu, the start of a short official career before years of wandering.
  • πŸ—ΊοΈ500 BC Sardinia turns Carthaginian purple on the map.

Every year has a page of its own with the people, the music and the news of the time: use the Go to button on the map, or the dates in the timeline above.

About this map

A world history map of any year, 4000 BC to 2026

Most historical atlases give you a map per century. This one gives you a map per change: 1,582 snapshots of the world's political borders, one for every year an empire grew, a kingdom fell or a country was born, joined on a single timeline you can drag. It is a world map by year and an atlas of historical borders in one.

1,582map snapshots
341of them before year 1
2,367years written up
6,026years from end to end

What the interactive map shows

Each colour on the map is a state: an empire, a kingdom, a republic or a city that ruled itself. Where no state existed yet the map names the peoples and cultures who lived there, from the Uruk villages of 4000 BC to the Jōmon of Japan and the first farmers of the Americas. The relief of the land shows through the colours, and the Blend slider sets how much. Every snapshot is a map of the world in that year, not a modern map with old names on it, so Rome's frontier, the Mongol empire at its height and the Soviet Union's last year all appear the way they stood.

A map timeline that jumps between changes

Borders do not move every year, so the timeline does not either. It runs from one snapshot to the next: the world of 1490 and the world of 1491 are the same map, and the timeline shows it once. Between two snapshots you always see the last one at or before your year, and the map bar tells you which. That is why a quiet stretch of the ancient world passes in a single step while the 1800s, with their wars of independence and the scramble for colonies, take 96 steps to cross.

How often the borders changed, century by century Each bar is one century of the timeline. The 1800s redraw the map 96 times, the most of any century; before 3000 BC one picture lasts a thousand years.
4000 BC3000 BC2000 BC1000 BC1 AD10002000
The numbers behind the chart
PeriodSnapshots
4000 BC to 3000 BC1
3000 BC to 2000 BC26
2000 BC to 1000 BC64
1000 BC to 1 BC250
1 to 999396
1000 to 1999831
2000 to 202614

How to use the map timeline

  1. 🎚️

    Pick a year

    Drag the timeline, type a year such as 500 BC into the year box, or step with the −100 to +100 buttons. Click the map once and the arrow keys jump to the next change; hold Shift for ten years, Ctrl for a hundred, and press Space to let it play.

  2. πŸ“

    Read the snapshot

    The snapshot readout says which map you are looking at. If it is earlier than your year, nothing on the map changed in between.

  3. πŸ“–

    Read the year

    The three panels above follow the timeline about a second behind: who held what and who fought whom, what moved on the map and why, and the events of the year with their dates.

  4. πŸ”—

    Go deeper

    The Go to button opens the full page of that year on DatesBack, with the people born and died, the music, the films and the news of every month. Any date in the timeline is a link to its own day.

Sixteen years to start with

Questions people ask

Which years does the world history map cover?

Every year from 4000 BC to 2026. The map is drawn from 1,582 snapshots, one for each year the borders changed, and any year in between shows the last snapshot before it. The three panels under the map have a written page for each of those snapshots and for every year since year 1.

Why does the map not change every year?

Borders do not move every year, so the map is a run of snapshots rather than a redrawn picture for each date. Between two snapshots you see the last one at or before your year, and the snapshot readout in the map bar says which. In the ancient world one picture can last centuries; in the 1800s the map changes 96 times.

How are the dates of ancient events chosen?

Dates after about 1500 BC are the ones reference books use. For Mesopotamia before that, where scholars disagree by decades, the map and the year pages follow the short chronology, which puts Hammurabi at 1728 to 1686 BC, and the text says so. Egyptian dates are the conventional ones.

Can I link to the map of one particular year?

Yes. Add the year to the address, for example datesback.com/map?year=1492 or datesback.com/map?year=-500 for 500 BC, and the map opens on that year with its panels filled in.

Is the map free to use?

Yes. There is no account, no download and no paywall. The map, the timeline and every year page are free to read and to link to.

Labelsswitch the names of states and peoples on and off
Blendhow much of the relief shows through the political colours
Zoom1:1 pixels, drag to pan; click again to fit the window