Mapping the Rise & Fall of Empires

Running Reality is an interactive map which has set itself the small task of plotting the rise and fall of countries and empires throughout the entire history of human civilization. Using Running Reality you can browse historical events on an online animated historical atlas.

Pick any date using the map timeline and you can explore any date in human history and view an interactive atlas of civilizations and countries for the chosen date. After selecting a date you can click on any civilization displayed on the map to view more information, such as when the civilization was founded and when it ended.

To help build this huge historical mapped model of the whole of human civilization Running Reality needs the help of its users. Therefore if you register with Running Reality you can help improve the map by contributing historical data to the timeline and map.


Hoagy Cunningham and Misha Wagner have also decided to map the entire history of the world. The result of this ambitious undertaking is Timeglo.be, a d3.js powered interactive globe plotting the location of over 20,000 events across the whole of recorded history.

Timeglo.be uses data from Wikipedia and DBpedia to show historical events on an interactive 3d globe. The map provides a global overview of any chosen time period, giving a really interesting cross section of world history at any given point in time. You can search for events by date and by key words and then follow the links provided to view more detailed information on Wikipedia.


Chronas is another interactive atlas which plots Wikipedia data to provide a view of historical events across the globe.

Chronas not only maps historical events but also provides a mapped overview of country boundaries for any given date. If you select a year from the time slider, running along the bottom of the map, the map will update to show how the world looked at the chosen time.

If you then click on a country or geographical area on the map a Wikipedia article on the selected historical region will open in the map sidebar. For example, if you select the year 573 AD from the time slider, you can select the Visigoths region on the map to learn more about these nomadic tribes.