Point in History

The historical boundaries data is taken from the historical boundaries project which "aims at providing ready-to-use base maps for mapping historical data. It is work in progress: verify the maps by comparison to other sources before using in academic work. If you see errors, report them in the "issues" section."

The project websites also notes that its worth keeping in mind that:

• boundaries are even more disputed than contemporary ones,
• that the actual concept of territory and national boundary becomes meaningful, in Europe, only since the Peace of Westphalia (1648), that
• areas of civilizations actually overlap, especially in ancient history, and that
• overlaying these ancient vector maps on contemporary physical maps can be misleading; rivers, lakes, shorelines do change very much over millennia; think for instance about the evolution of the Aral Sea since the 1980s.

Click anywhere on the map to highlight the boundaries associated with your given location.