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.
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 JΕmon 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.
The numbers behind the chart
| Period | Snapshots |
|---|---|
| 4000 BC to 3000 BC | 1 |
| 3000 BC to 2000 BC | 26 |
| 2000 BC to 1000 BC | 64 |
| 1000 BC to 1 BC | 250 |
| 1 to 999 | 396 |
| 1000 to 1999 | 831 |
| 2000 to 2026 | 14 |
How to use the map timeline
- ποΈ
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.
- π
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.
- π
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.
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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
- 3000 BCEgypt united, Sumer's first cities
- 2000 BCUr's empire and the first Chinese dynasty
- 1000 BCDavid's Israel, the Zhou, the Phoenicians
- 500 BCPersia at its widest
- 330 BCAlexander takes the Persian empire
- 1Rome and Han China face each other
- 476The Western Roman empire ends
- 800Charlemagne is crowned emperor
- 1066The Normans conquer England
- 1279The Mongol empire at its height
- 1492Columbus sails, Granada falls
- 1648Europe after the Thirty Years' War
- 1815Europe after Napoleon
- 1914The eve of the First World War
- 1945The end of the Second World War
- 1991The Soviet Union dissolves
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.