Atlas: a map of history you can play through

2026-11-08

I’ve been building a historical atlas, and it’s now live at atlasforatlas.com. The idea is simple: a map of the whole world where you can scrub through time, from 3000 BCE to the present, and watch borders, events, and people move.

Italy in 213 BCE, mid-Second Punic War, on Atlas. Screenshot from atlasforatlas.com.

The timeline along the bottom works like a video player. Drag to scrub, press play, and the clock runs while territories shift and events light up on the map. Clicking anything opens a card with what happened, where the record comes from, and further reading.

There are also guided tours for specific periods and topics: South Asia from 1790 to 1820, North America from 1492 to 1900, Europe from 1910 to 1950, and more. One of my favourite features is the fog of war view, which shows the world as one culture knew it on a given date, with the unknown drawn as cloud or blank parchment.

Everything is drawn from open sources: Wikidata, OpenHistoricalMap, Natural Earth, and others. The research behind the tours is quote-checked and independently verified, and each layer of the map says what class of evidence it is, so you can tell observed borders from modelled ones.

It’s free to use. If you try it, I’d love to hear what you think at feedback@atlasforatlas.com.