Interactive history map

ChronoAtlas

Six thousand years of history on one timeline map.

In short

Time range: 4000 BCE to the present on one slider
Layers: Borders, rulers, events, trade routes, cities, scanned maps, weather, 3D wonders, ice-age seas
Price: The map is free forever; Pro €4.99 a month; Classroom €19 a month
Besides the map: The Senate, Rule History, Time Walk AR and six classroom lessons
Data: Wikidata, Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Natural Earth, historical-basemaps, MapWarper scans
Sharing: Every view is a URL with year, position and zoom

What it is

ChronoAtlas is a free interactive historical world map. A single timeline runs from 4000 BCE to the present; drag it and the borders redraw, the rulers change, the trade routes appear and disappear. Click any state to see who ruled it, with portraits and descriptions drawn from Wikidata and Wikipedia. It opens without an account, without ads on the map, and every view you reach is a shareable URL.

It is built for the history-curious, for students and for teachers. Around the map sit a Roman Senate debate game, a ruler game, a phone AR walk through the history of where you stand, and a classroom product with ready-to-teach lessons.

ChronoAtlas zoomed in on Constantinople in 1453 with borders, events and the timeline — 1453, Constantinople. The URL carries the year, the position and the zoom, so this exact view can be shared.

How it works

Pick a year. Drag the slider along the bottom, click the year to type one, or hold Alt while dragging for fine control. Press play and history unfolds at the speed you choose; the recorder exports it as a time-lapse.
Switch the layers. Historical borders by era, battles, sieges, political, religious and cultural events, natural disasters, trade routes, cities sized by population, the spread of plague, printing and faith, the weather of history, scanned historical maps, ice-age sea levels and 3D wonders, armies and ships.
Click into the map. A state opens its ruler; an event opens its story; a scanned map lays the original cartography over the terrain.
Ask the atlas. Type a question in plain English, such as "Rome at its peak" or "Who ruled Persia under Darius?", and the guide moves the timeline, flies to the place and answers in a few lines. Three questions a day are free; the Pro plan removes the limit. You can also talk to a local from the era you are looking at.

ChronoAtlas in 1279 showing the Mongol Empire across Asia — 1279, the Mongol Empire at its height: the same layers, a different century.

Beyond the map

The Senate. Stand before the Senate of Rome in a first-person 3D Curia, pick a real motion from the Republic (carry the war to Africa in 205 BC, spare Carthage in 150 BC, land for the poor in 133 BC) and argue it against Cato, Cicero and Fabius. Lose, and history plays out as it did.
Rule History. Pick one of 30 real rulers, from Julius Caesar and Cleopatra to Mansa Musa and Napoleon. Each reign brings four decisions they actually faced, scored on a legacy meter.
Time Walk. Point your phone and travel through the history of the ground you are standing on, using the camera, compass and GPS. Nothing is stored or sent.
Classroom. Six ready-to-teach lessons of 45 to 50 minutes, from Alexander to the Dutch Golden Age, each opening the map at the exact year and place with questions, a game round and a printable worksheet.

The Senate on chronoatlas.nl: the entrance to the 3D Curia with a list of real motions from the Roman Republic — The Senate: argue a real motion against Rome's greatest minds.

Inside the Curia in first person: the speaker\x27s lectern, senators on the benches, braziers and the statue at the far end — The spawn point inside the Curia. Walk with WASD, run with Shift, press T to speak to the Senate. The senators were generated with FormFromLight.

The Classroom page with six lessons, each with a year, a place and a worksheet — Classroom: teach history where it happened.

Pricing

Plan	Price	Includes
Explorer	Free forever	The full map and timeline, rulers, routes, events and cities, both games, Time Walk, 3 AI questions a day
Pro	€4.99 a month	Unlimited AI guide, 10 Senate debates a month (3 with live voices), AI-generated tours, every layer, HD time-lapse export, Time Walk without ads
Classroom	€19 a month	Everything in Pro for one teacher and all their classes, unlimited debates, 20 live voice debates, the six lessons and worksheets, assignable Rule History

Under the hood

The map renders with MapLibre GL on OpenStreetMap data built by Protomaps, with Natural Earth for sea names and NASA Blue Marble and AWS terrain tiles for the ground. Historical borders come from the historical-basemaps project, rulers, dates and flags from Wikidata, portraits from Wikimedia Commons, and scanned maps through MapWarper. The AI guide and the senators run on OpenAI; payments run through Stripe. The 3D wonders, armies and ships were made with FormFromLight.

The product is explicit about its limits: borders, dates and figures are simplified and may contain errors. ChronoAtlas is for learning and curiosity, not a professional reference.

The Explore page on chronoatlas.nl with landing pages for ten empires and eras — Explore: ten eras, each one a link that opens the map at the right year and place.