Worldlines: compare world history across countries and regions

Read → across

Follow one place or region through a chapter, left to right.

Compare ↓ down

Events on the same vertical line happened at about the same time.

Slice ■ a year

Stop the clock and see who ruled where, in every place you are comparing.

The atlas needs JavaScript

Worldlines draws its timelines in the browser. Turn on JavaScript to compare 26 countries and 8 regions through 218 turning points and 348 states. The eight chapters are:

01 · Origins & Settlements c. 13,000–3,000 BCE
Humans reshape landscapes, domesticate plants and animals, and build enduring communities, by many routes rather than one agricultural revolution.
02 · Cities, States & Writing c. 3,500–500 BCE
Dense settlements, record-keeping, organised religion, taxation, armies and long-distance exchange transform power.
03 · Classical Worlds c. 600 BCE–600 CE
Large empires and durable schools of thought take shape across Eurasia, Africa and the Americas.
04 · Connected Worlds 500–1500 CE
Trade, pilgrimage, scholarship, conquest and migration bind distant societies, while disease and war travel too.
05 · Oceans & Gunpowder 1450–1750
Ocean routes and expanding states create global circuits of silver, crops, coerced labour, texts and weapons.
06 · Industry & Revolutions 1750–1914
Fossil-fuelled industry, political revolution, nationalism, abolition, capitalism and imperialism reorder the planet.
07 · Crisis & World Wars 1914–1945
Total war, mass politics, depression, fascism, genocide, anticolonial struggle and revolution break the old orders.
08 · A Decolonising World 1945–today
New nations, Cold War rivalry, rights movements, digital networks and ecological limits define an unfinished present.

Lanes

Compare

Long view

Fifteen thousand years, one block per state

Each row is a place and each block is the state that held it. The places you compare open up; the rest stay as thin strips. Blocks in full colour are the states ruling in the year you have frozen.

Hover to read a year · select to freeze it · select a name to compare it

Year slice

The world in one year

Stop the clock. Each place shows the state that held it, where that year falls in the state’s life, what came before and after, and what happened nearby in time.

WORLDLINES

How to learn the whole world without flattening it.