Inspired by John B. Sparks' 1931 Histomap, this is a zoomable map of human history from roughly 300,000 BC to today. Time flows top to bottom; geography runs west to east — Americas, Europe, Middle East & Africa, India, East Asia.
Stream widths are illustrative. Like the original, the width of each civilization is an editorial judgment of relative power and influence, not a measurement — and stream positions bend a little so no two overlap. The time scale is deliberately warped: deep prehistory is compressed, recorded history expanded, so the map roughly tracks how much we know about each age.
Controls — Drag or scroll to travel through time. Pinch on touch screens, or use Ctrl+scroll on desktop, to zoom (zooming reveals more detail; minor civilizations grow in as you zoom). Drag the timeline edge to jump. Click the timeline to see everything happening in that moment. Click anything on the map to read its story. Press / to search. On phones, zooming in also magnifies geography — slide left and right to pan across the world at that moment.
Blurbs are hand-written for this project. Images and "read more" links come live from Wikipedia's public API. Progress is stored only in your browser.