Historical boundaries
Cliopatria, version 0.2.0 ↗
Seshat Global History Databank; Ed Chalstrey, James Bennett, Erin Mutch and contributors. CC BY 4.0.
1,550 named polities · 13,380 polity records · 3400 BCE–2024 CE.
THE WORLD, THROUGH TIME
See the world
through time.
Explore changing borders. Follow an empire.
Make a map—or a story in motion.
01 / CHOOSE YOUR SUBJECT
Choose a state or empire
WORLD & REGIONS
The world in history
Recorded boundaries, with modern coastlines for context.
Preparing the atlas…
Loading boundaries…
Loading the historical catalogue…
Tap a coloured area for its name and sources.How accurate is this?
3400 BCEDrag through time2024 CE
Timeline settings
Use negative years for BCE. Boundaries change at source dates; we do not invent intermediate borders. “Recorded changes” gives each change equal time.
SOURCE RECORD
Polities in this year
The list includes all source records for this year, including those outside a regional view. Some records overlap.
02 / MAKE IT YOURS
One view. Your perspective.
Appearance Title, colour & layout
Tap a polity to change its colour. Palette colours repeat on broad maps. The year and source credit stay on exported artwork.
Save & reuse On this device
Your current design saves automatically on this device. Named designs and editable files let you keep separate timelines.
Editable files include colours and timeline settings, with references to the bundled dataset. No account or cross-device cloud saving.
THE DATA BEHIND THE MAP
History has edges.
Our sources have limits.
This atlas shows source-recorded political territories, not a definitive account of sovereignty. Boundaries can be uncertain, disputed or simplified. Uncoloured land means no displayed record—not that nobody lived there or governed it.
What the dates mean
Each boundary applies to an inclusive range of years in the source. A map can remain unchanged for many years. Blank years are shown as gaps. Recorded-change playback gives each event equal time; chronological playback gives equal time to years.
Named entries in parentheses are grouped with the same unparenthesised name. Composite empires and their component states may overlap; larger records are drawn first. Alliance-only records are excluded.
What has been adapted
Geometry is simplified for responsive display and downloads. Modern coastlines come from Natural Earth (public domain); they are geographic context, not reconstructed historical shorelines.
British Empire source coverage is 1706–1999; Roman Empire coverage is 31 BCE–394 CE. Earlier British possessions and later Roman successors may be separate catalogue entries. The source treats some self-governing dominions separately: for example, Australia is a separate entry after 1901, and is absent from the British Empire composite in 1920. This is not a complete map of imperial influence. No missing boundaries are filled using modern countries.