Watch who ruled the world change, one snapshot at a time. Hover any patch of colour to see whose it was; tap it for its ruler, capital and government that year.
Tap a power above to light up everything it held
Scroll or pinch to zoom, drag to move, double-tap to reset. Tap any territory for its story in that year.
Borders. Each snapshot shows the territories recorded for that year in Cliopatria, a peer-reviewed academic dataset of the world's political borders. Colonies and possessions are coloured with the empire that held them, so the British Empire is one colour from London to Delhi. Borders are approximate and simplified, and blank land had no state recorded that year.
Cards. What each territory was, its capital, form of government, head of state and population come from Wikidata, using only facts dated to the snapshot year where dates exist. Population appears only when a figure dated within 15 years of the snapshot exists, and its year is shown. Rulers of the largest powers were researched by hand: the head of state who reigned for most of that year, plus the person who held real power where that was someone else, and checked against Wikidata.
Known gaps. The source map sometimes keeps a territory after it ended (New Netherland still appears in 1783, for example). When Wikipedia dates a territory outside the snapshot year, its card says so instead of showing facts that might belong to another period. Empire names group related states: "Russia / USSR" covers Muscovy, the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union.
Borders: Cliopatria by the Seshat Global History Databank (Bennett et al., Scientific Data 2025), CC BY 4.0; simplified, reprojected and grouped into empires by Terrestrial Atlas. Facts: Wikidata (CC0). Rulers: researched by Terrestrial Atlas from public sources. Today's borders: Natural Earth (public domain).
Spotted an error? Corrections are welcome: [email protected]. Please say which year, which territory and what it should be.