Why I made this
I grew up in Pakistan and live in Austria. Both are places where empires met, clashed and left their mark, and I wanted to see that with my own eyes: who ruled the land under my feet, and how the lines on the map kept moving.
So I built the atlas I wanted to use. A globe you can spin through 125,000 years, a story for every empire, and a way to ask any spot on Earth who ruled it.
It's a side project, built with Claude Code in my spare time, alongside the other things on my projects page.
In numbers
- 53 world maps, from 123,000 BC to 2026
- 66 empire and homeland histories
- 749 rulers, each with a one-line note
- 3,000+ kingdoms, peoples and states on the maps
This is random research by a curious person, not a history book. I'm not claiming that anything here is accurate.
Maps of the past are educated guesses, and history is argued about for good reason. The borders come from an open dataset that is itself approximate, and the stories and ruler lists are my own reading. You will find mistakes.
When you do, I'd genuinely love to hear about it. I'm the kind of person who enjoys being corrected, so drop me a message on LinkedIn and I'll fix it.
Send me a correction on LinkedInWhere it comes from
- Historical borders: historical-basemaps by André Ourednik, an open dataset under the GPL-3.0 licence. Each border carries its own accuracy rating, shown when you click a territory.
- The 2026 map: Natural Earth country borders, public domain. It shows internationally recognised borders.
- Stories, rulers and homelands: written for this project from general historical knowledge. Dates marked "c." are approximate.
- Built with: D3 for the maps, and fonts served from this site. No other companies are called.
Privacy
No ads, no tracking, no cookies and no sign-up. The map remembers your view, filters and settings in your own browser only, and nothing is sent anywhere.
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