About ClioMap

ClioMap is a map of world history, named after Clio, the Greek muse of history. Drag it through time from 3000 BC to AD 2000 to see who ruled, who rose and who fell, and why it mattered. It follows the major states and turning points, not every detail, so the big story stays clear.

Borders are hand-drawn approximations, and the power index (1–10) scores each state against the world of its own time. Spotted a mistake? Tell us.

Where this comes from

• The history (states, events, rivalries, the tour and the World War tabs) is written by hand from well-established general history. Wikipedia is the first reference: each state, event and war moment links its article.
• Borders are drawn by hand to show roughly who held what. They are not surveyed frontiers, and the earliest ones are often just the area a culture is known from.
• The power index is our own judgement, made by Claude and reviewed by Arpit, with a short reason for every score. It is a guide to the balance of power, not a measurement.
• The base map (coastlines, and present-day countries on the war maps) comes from Natural Earth.
• Current geography uses published data: Natural Earth, USGS earthquakes, the Smithsonian Global Volcanism Program, PB2002 plate boundaries (Peter Bird; GIS files by Hugo Ahlenius and Nordpil), the World Bank, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (oil) and Our World in Data. Each view names its exact source.
• World trade uses goods trade between countries from UN Comtrade, for the G20 economies, as each country reports it.
• Oil chokepoints (in Current geography) use the oil flows of the U.S. Energy Information Administration. What is happening at each chokepoint now is summarised from news reports (Lloyd's List, the Panama Canal Authority and others) and carries the date it was checked.

Who made it

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