The Timemaps Atlas of World History is an online atlas which spans the period from 3500 BCE, when the earliest civilizations beginning to emerge, through to the early 21st century.
We believe that maps make sense of so much history; and when put together in sequences, maps can instantly bring to life change over time. Such map sequences can add a huge amount to the understanding of many historical topics.
The Timemaps Atlas of World History is made up of map sequences. They divided into two broad categories: the Core World History Atlas and Key Topic Units.
The Core World History Atlas
The core of the Timemaps World History Atlas is made up of sequences of maps. These are grouped into three separate levels.
World Maps
The top level is made up of twenty world maps, each at different dates. Together, these maps offer a panoramic overview of world history. They allow users to see at a glance how different civilisations and key episodes fit into the broader scheme of global history. As such, users can easily explore links between different regions and civilisations, and so understand how they influenced one another.
Regional Maps
The second level contains map sequences covering the histories of the major regions of the world – North and South America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and so on.
These regional maps show individual civilizations and empires at greater detail than in the top level. They offer insights into how different parts of the world have developed in their own unique ways, and also how they have influenced each other through trade, migration, conquest and so on.
These regional map sequences follow the same 20 dates as the world map sequence. This allows users to compare and contrast different regions in different periods, which is a fascination and instructive exercise.
Country Maps
At the third level, we cover the individual countries of the world. These also follow the same timeline of dates.
Twenty dates
The results of all the above – the different levels of coverage all following the same set of twenty dates – is an atlas in which users can explore the world through history and across geography, moving between world, regional and country maps, and between millennia and centuries.
Key Topic Units
Having all the maps in the Core Atlas conform to a fixed set of twenty dates does have a drawback, however. It means that some – actually, many – major events are missed. They simply fall in the gaps between the maps.
For example. In the Core Atlas, two of the 20 key dates are 500 BCE and 200 BCE. In the 300 years that separates these, a lot of things happen – the Persian Wars between Greece and Persia, Alexander the Great’s conquests, the unification of China under the First Emperor, the use of the Maurya Empire, the expansion of Roman power across the western Mediterranean basin, and so on. Elsewhere in time and place, the entire history of the Mongol Empire, one of the most iconic episodes in world history, takes place between two more of the key dates, 1215 CE and 1453 CE. I could go on.
A Deeper Dive
To deal with this, we are creating a growing range of Map Sequences which offer users a deeper dive into key topics in world history (including all the ones I’ve just mentioned).
These will appeal to anyone wanting to explore these topics further, and it will be of particular value to teachers covering these topics in World History courses.
Please Enjoy!
We very much hope that you find this Atlas useful and informative. We believe that it will contribute in an important way to helping users understand the past better. Almost more important than that to us, though, is our hope that you enjoy using it, and that it engages you in the fascinating, extraordinary and crucially important subject of World History.