7 ms·

Periodis Web – A Historical Atlas and Gazetteer of Europe from Year 1 to 2000

124 points by atas 14y ago

Kototama 14y ago
This is great, thank you.
jfaucett 14y ago
I especially found the map of europe Year 1 vs 2000 interesting. Hopefully, it won't take another 2k years for the EU to grow back together as a community. Of course, there are the intermittent 2k years that have divided us, but if you compare the progress over the last 50 to the previous roughly 2k I think we've done quit well.
- nagrom 14y ago
  Not sure whether you are pro- or anti-EU with that comment... You are aware that the union in year 1 was effectively a somewhat brutal dictatorship imposed by force where human life was treated as a toy for an elite caste that ruled from afar, right? There was no 'EU community' then. There was the brutal rule of hierarchical violence and fealty to pay to a foreign emperor. Regardless of what you think of the EU, the Roman empire is not something to which anyone should reasonably aspire!
  - jfaucett 14y ago
    I'm definately pro EU and also quite aware of the Roman Empire's injustices, I just think its interesting that a map of the current EU member states - http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:EU_Member_states_and_Candidate_countries_map.svg http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:EU_Member_states_and_Cand..., has a large overlap, minus Turkey and the arabic countries. Which makes me wonder/hope that perhaps they could also one day become member states in a harmonious union. Obviously, this observation only comes from the maps not historical events, which most certianly is one of the main reasons Turkey is not an EU member as of now.
    - nagrom 14y ago
      I don't think it is so much of a surprise. The Roman empire enforced a lot of cultural norms and spread a common religion. The religion, in particular, was responsible for a largely common education and that still exists today! It is therefore no surprise that the member states that share that common education have a lot of political interaction. However, often that political interaction has been warlike and negative and it's not clear that one can peaceably enforce positive interaction between states. The best thing that the EU could do to harmonise relations, in my opinion, would be to encourage an EU-wide educational system and make that education open to other, non-european states too. Take the harmonising parts of that ancient common religion and try to avoid the the mystical and manipulative hierarchies which caused a lot of bloodshed and which will, in my opinion, eventually bring it down.
      - riffraff 14y ago
        I believe you are thinking of the existing Bologna Process[0] which is, at heart, an attempt to build an EU-wide common higher education system. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bologna_Process http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bologna_Process
        nagrom 14y ago
        Yes and no. The Bologna Process, as I understand it, is a harmonisation of academic qualifications designed to allow someone with a degree in Italy to be qualified to do a PhD. in the Netherlands, etc. I'm talking more about a FOSS-style curriculum that doesn't necessarily address economic arguments, but acts as a basis for what modern European school children should know and learn. Some common cultural grounding that clearly states an accumulated sum of knowledge and learning techniques that defines what it means to be 'educated'.
  - JoeAltmaier 14y ago
    Should be a link to "Life of Brian" here - where Cleese says "What have the Romans every given us? Nothun'!" and a cell member raises his hand. "The Aquaduct?" "Oh yeah, the Aquaduct, yeah, that." And on and on until they have a long list of improvements instituted by the Romans.
    - Jd 14y ago
      That was easy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExWfh6sGyso http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExWfh6sGyso
    - Androsynth 14y ago
      Its easy for entertainers to make that joke. But history has shown that in general, people prefer independence over technology.
      - JoeAltmaier 14y ago
        Sure, but they have to be alive to appreciate anything. You can make the argument: providing public safety, armed police, clean safe water and medicine, Romans saved far more lives than they ever hurt.
- d_theorist 14y ago
  This comment exposes the elitist Europhile mindset beautifully. Yes, another Roman Empire to allow a small imperial caste to rule the entire continent is exactly what they are aiming for.
  - jfaucett 14y ago
    That's not what I meant to convey at all. The idea is that cultures that have a different history, a history of conflict, blood and war - as one would probably guess just by observing the lines on this map - can come together, work together and overcome their different antagonistic histories, in order to attain peace. If other states were to join, islamic states, such as Turkey, and it were to work, this would be an even more amazing historical event. I'm not saying the EU is without its problems, but I think its going far in moving away from cold-warish pre 21st century nationalistic tendencies that have led to so much disaster in the world.
    - onemorepassword 14y ago
      You realize that the vast majority of that history of conflict, blood and war has been caused by attempts to remove those lines from the map?
    - iuguy 14y ago
      > If other states were to join, islamic states, such as Turkey, and it were to work, this would be an even more amazing historical event. Can you define 'Islamic state'? Turkey is a secular democratic republic. Admittedly one run by religious nutjobs with delusions of grandeur at the moment, but it is technically a secular republic, not an islamic state, and does not identify as such. Also, for Turkey to join the EU, the EU would have to provide an incentive that at the moment does not exist. Turkey has good tariffs and trade agreements with many EU states and having it's own currency.
  - skrebbel 14y ago
    Straw man.
  - vidarh 14y ago
- troels 14y ago
  The one thing you're missing, is the USA. Europe, as a cultural whole, should really include USA. In that perspective, the map has actually changed quite a bit since year 1.
  - lifeisstillgood 14y ago
    Never thought of it quite like that - yes, we did expand the Borders a little:-)
- onemorepassword 14y ago
  Yeah, we really dream of being swallowed up and exploited by a greater empire again, because we haven't had enough of that fun yet in the period between the Roman empire and the 3rd Reich... There's no "back together" because there has never been a together that wasn't under the sword or the gun in the first place. Peace, cooperation and wide open borders within the EU, great. The EU as the next empire, no thanks. If anything, the ideal future map of Europe has more borders as communities peacefully regain their autonomy and independence.
  - iuguy 14y ago
    Not to mention the former Soviet members of the EU, some of whom have had the opportunity to be swallowed up by other empires several times now.
nagrom 14y ago
If someone was to download these images and make a simple site that links them all with transition fades to show the change over time, would it be an infringement of the Euratlas copyright?
- Svip 14y ago
  Contact them, they licence their maps out. You can even get in high resolution SVG format: http://shop.euratlas.com/maps_gis/index.html http://shop.euratlas.com/maps_gis/index.html As for the copyright, see: http://www.euratlas.com/conditions.html http://www.euratlas.com/conditions.html as well as: > You may use the Euratlas images and maps, as they are available on the websites euratlas.com and euratlas.net, for educational or illustration purposes but you must mention the source in that way: © 2010 Christos Nussli, www euratlas.com No commercial use is allowed. http://www.euratlas.com/about.html http://www.euratlas.com/about.html
  - jamesmcbennett 14y ago
    You guys might like a TEDx talk by a friend of mine Grzegorz 'The collapse of complex societies' specifically Roman Empire. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcE0rIEHEFI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcE0rIEHEFI
    - Svip 14y ago
      I am already reading Edward Gibbon's The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, and while research since its conception may have disputed certain facts unknown at Gibbon's time (it was published in 1776), it is still an excellent detailed account of the Roman Empire from 170s and onward, without ever getting boring, because of Gibbon's excellent prose.
      - jacoblyles 14y ago
        Check out "The History of Rome" podcast by Mike Duncan, for a highly enjoyable and thoroughly researched account of Rome from ~400BC to the last Western emperor.
fractalsea 14y ago
Great. I love maps, and I love history. I feel like I don't have enough time to read enough history. Looking at maps gives a good summary of the rise and demise of various empires and states.
- Svip 14y ago
  Then I will highly recommend this: http://www.the-map-as-history.com/ http://www.the-map-as-history.com/ It's a pay-site, but its content is well worth the small price. The commentary is excellent and the attention to detail is high, without being boring. My only issue would be that they use Flash, but I guess I can forgive this site for it.
icehero 14y ago
News flash: there are more then 2000 years of Europe.
tzury 14y ago
Atlas of The World History (animated) http://www.atlasofworldhistory.com/ http://www.atlasofworldhistory.com/ also http://www.timemaps.com/history http://www.timemaps.com/history
- maxprogram 14y ago
  The project I'm currently working on is called Atlastory, and would be a Google Maps-like interface throughout history. The idea is to eventually have political maps like those in the OP + specific maps for historic events. Demo is up at http://atlastory.com http://atlastory.com (for now only maps are WWII and Civil War). If anyone's interested in helping out please contact me. (Currently looking for another developer to help with the much more complicated back-end)
  - g2e 14y ago
    Currently working on a similar project as well!
jsc 14y ago
Frontiers of Europe from -500 to 2013. https://itunes.apple.com/app/id543207391 https://itunes.apple.com/app/id543207391
dimitar 14y ago
I prefer the maps in Wikimedia Commons - there are some amateur maps, which may be even better than some lifted from expired-copyright atlases. There are quite a few different historical maps of the same year/region - it is very important to have them side by side, because history is very subjective and historical maps are only a subjective and deficient in data representations of historical presence. Maps (by century): http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Maps_by_century_shown http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Maps_by_century_s...
- dimitar 14y ago
  For example: - Bavaria is shown to be a Austrian possession in 1800, which is incorrect. Consider the implications if Bavaria was a part of Austria for a while - would there be a Southern German nation? Or would be in fact inconsiderable that Austria is a separate state given the overlap with other German states? If you have only this map as a teaching tool you are implicitly giving a false impression of history. - There are no Ukrainian states or predecessors (the Cossack Sich) after the 14th century on any of these maps. By omitting this state the appearance of Ukraine seems mysterious in 20th century and a key narrative in the histories of Poland, Russia and even Sweden (the winter war) simply disappears.
dspeyer 14y ago
There's a lot of blank space in the year one map. I bet there were people living in those places.
AlexeiSadeski 14y ago
Remarkable that the French & English won WWI when you look at the year 1900 map. Between Germany, Austria, Ottomans, and Italians, it seems that ~75% of the at war landmass was on the German side.
epynonymous 14y ago
interesting that germany didn't even come into existence until the 1900's according to this tool.

124 points by atas 14y ago

This is great, thank you.

I especially found the map of europe Year 1 vs 2000 interesting. Hopefully, it won't take another 2k years for the EU to grow back together as a community. Of course, there are the intermittent 2k years that have divided us, but if you compare the progress over the last 50 to the previous roughly 2k I think we've done quit well.

nagrom 14y ago
Not sure whether you are pro- or anti-EU with that comment... You are aware that the union in year 1 was effectively a somewhat brutal dictatorship imposed by force where human life was treated as a toy for an elite caste that ruled from afar, right? There was no 'EU community' then. There was the brutal rule of hierarchical violence and fealty to pay to a foreign emperor. Regardless of what you think of the EU, the Roman empire is not something to which anyone should reasonably aspire!
- jfaucett 14y ago
  I'm definately pro EU and also quite aware of the Roman Empire's injustices, I just think its interesting that a map of the current EU member states - http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:EU_Member_states_and_Candidate_countries_map.svg http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:EU_Member_states_and_Cand..., has a large overlap, minus Turkey and the arabic countries. Which makes me wonder/hope that perhaps they could also one day become member states in a harmonious union. Obviously, this observation only comes from the maps not historical events, which most certianly is one of the main reasons Turkey is not an EU member as of now.
  - nagrom 14y ago
    I don't think it is so much of a surprise. The Roman empire enforced a lot of cultural norms and spread a common religion. The religion, in particular, was responsible for a largely common education and that still exists today! It is therefore no surprise that the member states that share that common education have a lot of political interaction. However, often that political interaction has been warlike and negative and it's not clear that one can peaceably enforce positive interaction between states. The best thing that the EU could do to harmonise relations, in my opinion, would be to encourage an EU-wide educational system and make that education open to other, non-european states too. Take the harmonising parts of that ancient common religion and try to avoid the the mystical and manipulative hierarchies which caused a lot of bloodshed and which will, in my opinion, eventually bring it down.
    - riffraff 14y ago
      I believe you are thinking of the existing Bologna Process[0] which is, at heart, an attempt to build an EU-wide common higher education system. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bologna_Process http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bologna_Process
      - nagrom 14y ago
        Yes and no. The Bologna Process, as I understand it, is a harmonisation of academic qualifications designed to allow someone with a degree in Italy to be qualified to do a PhD. in the Netherlands, etc. I'm talking more about a FOSS-style curriculum that doesn't necessarily address economic arguments, but acts as a basis for what modern European school children should know and learn. Some common cultural grounding that clearly states an accumulated sum of knowledge and learning techniques that defines what it means to be 'educated'.
- JoeAltmaier 14y ago
  Should be a link to "Life of Brian" here - where Cleese says "What have the Romans every given us? Nothun'!" and a cell member raises his hand. "The Aquaduct?" "Oh yeah, the Aquaduct, yeah, that." And on and on until they have a long list of improvements instituted by the Romans.
  - Jd 14y ago
    That was easy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExWfh6sGyso http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExWfh6sGyso
  - Androsynth 14y ago
    Its easy for entertainers to make that joke. But history has shown that in general, people prefer independence over technology.
    - JoeAltmaier 14y ago
      Sure, but they have to be alive to appreciate anything. You can make the argument: providing public safety, armed police, clean safe water and medicine, Romans saved far more lives than they ever hurt.
d_theorist 14y ago
This comment exposes the elitist Europhile mindset beautifully. Yes, another Roman Empire to allow a small imperial caste to rule the entire continent is exactly what they are aiming for.
- jfaucett 14y ago
  That's not what I meant to convey at all. The idea is that cultures that have a different history, a history of conflict, blood and war - as one would probably guess just by observing the lines on this map - can come together, work together and overcome their different antagonistic histories, in order to attain peace. If other states were to join, islamic states, such as Turkey, and it were to work, this would be an even more amazing historical event. I'm not saying the EU is without its problems, but I think its going far in moving away from cold-warish pre 21st century nationalistic tendencies that have led to so much disaster in the world.
  - onemorepassword 14y ago
    You realize that the vast majority of that history of conflict, blood and war has been caused by attempts to remove those lines from the map?
  - iuguy 14y ago
    > If other states were to join, islamic states, such as Turkey, and it were to work, this would be an even more amazing historical event. Can you define 'Islamic state'? Turkey is a secular democratic republic. Admittedly one run by religious nutjobs with delusions of grandeur at the moment, but it is technically a secular republic, not an islamic state, and does not identify as such. Also, for Turkey to join the EU, the EU would have to provide an incentive that at the moment does not exist. Turkey has good tariffs and trade agreements with many EU states and having it's own currency.
- skrebbel 14y ago
  Straw man.
- vidarh 14y ago
troels 14y ago
The one thing you're missing, is the USA. Europe, as a cultural whole, should really include USA. In that perspective, the map has actually changed quite a bit since year 1.
- lifeisstillgood 14y ago
  Never thought of it quite like that - yes, we did expand the Borders a little:-)
onemorepassword 14y ago
Yeah, we really dream of being swallowed up and exploited by a greater empire again, because we haven't had enough of that fun yet in the period between the Roman empire and the 3rd Reich... There's no "back together" because there has never been a together that wasn't under the sword or the gun in the first place. Peace, cooperation and wide open borders within the EU, great. The EU as the next empire, no thanks. If anything, the ideal future map of Europe has more borders as communities peacefully regain their autonomy and independence.
- iuguy 14y ago
  Not to mention the former Soviet members of the EU, some of whom have had the opportunity to be swallowed up by other empires several times now.

nagrom 14y ago

If someone was to download these images and make a simple site that links them all with transition fades to show the change over time, would it be an infringement of the Euratlas copyright?

Svip 14y ago
Contact them, they licence their maps out. You can even get in high resolution SVG format: http://shop.euratlas.com/maps_gis/index.html http://shop.euratlas.com/maps_gis/index.html As for the copyright, see: http://www.euratlas.com/conditions.html http://www.euratlas.com/conditions.html as well as: > You may use the Euratlas images and maps, as they are available on the websites euratlas.com and euratlas.net, for educational or illustration purposes but you must mention the source in that way: © 2010 Christos Nussli, www euratlas.com No commercial use is allowed. http://www.euratlas.com/about.html http://www.euratlas.com/about.html
- jamesmcbennett 14y ago
  You guys might like a TEDx talk by a friend of mine Grzegorz 'The collapse of complex societies' specifically Roman Empire. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcE0rIEHEFI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcE0rIEHEFI
  - Svip 14y ago
    I am already reading Edward Gibbon's The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, and while research since its conception may have disputed certain facts unknown at Gibbon's time (it was published in 1776), it is still an excellent detailed account of the Roman Empire from 170s and onward, without ever getting boring, because of Gibbon's excellent prose.
    - jacoblyles 14y ago
      Check out "The History of Rome" podcast by Mike Duncan, for a highly enjoyable and thoroughly researched account of Rome from ~400BC to the last Western emperor.

fractalsea 14y ago

Great. I love maps, and I love history. I feel like I don't have enough time to read enough history. Looking at maps gives a good summary of the rise and demise of various empires and states.

Svip 14y ago
Then I will highly recommend this: http://www.the-map-as-history.com/ http://www.the-map-as-history.com/ It's a pay-site, but its content is well worth the small price. The commentary is excellent and the attention to detail is high, without being boring. My only issue would be that they use Flash, but I guess I can forgive this site for it.

icehero 14y ago

News flash: there are more then 2000 years of Europe.

tzury 14y ago

Atlas of The World History (animated) http://www.atlasofworldhistory.com/ http://www.atlasofworldhistory.com/ also http://www.timemaps.com/history http://www.timemaps.com/history

maxprogram 14y ago
The project I'm currently working on is called Atlastory, and would be a Google Maps-like interface throughout history. The idea is to eventually have political maps like those in the OP + specific maps for historic events. Demo is up at http://atlastory.com http://atlastory.com (for now only maps are WWII and Civil War). If anyone's interested in helping out please contact me. (Currently looking for another developer to help with the much more complicated back-end)
- g2e 14y ago
  Currently working on a similar project as well!

jsc 14y ago

Frontiers of Europe from -500 to 2013. https://itunes.apple.com/app/id543207391 https://itunes.apple.com/app/id543207391

dimitar 14y ago

I prefer the maps in Wikimedia Commons - there are some amateur maps, which may be even better than some lifted from expired-copyright atlases. There are quite a few different historical maps of the same year/region - it is very important to have them side by side, because history is very subjective and historical maps are only a subjective and deficient in data representations of historical presence. Maps (by century): http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Maps_by_century_shown http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Maps_by_century_s...

dimitar 14y ago
For example: - Bavaria is shown to be a Austrian possession in 1800, which is incorrect. Consider the implications if Bavaria was a part of Austria for a while - would there be a Southern German nation? Or would be in fact inconsiderable that Austria is a separate state given the overlap with other German states? If you have only this map as a teaching tool you are implicitly giving a false impression of history. - There are no Ukrainian states or predecessors (the Cossack Sich) after the 14th century on any of these maps. By omitting this state the appearance of Ukraine seems mysterious in 20th century and a key narrative in the histories of Poland, Russia and even Sweden (the winter war) simply disappears.

dspeyer 14y ago

There's a lot of blank space in the year one map. I bet there were people living in those places.

AlexeiSadeski 14y ago

Remarkable that the French & English won WWI when you look at the year 1900 map. Between Germany, Austria, Ottomans, and Italians, it seems that ~75% of the at war landmass was on the German side.

epynonymous 14y ago

interesting that germany didn't even come into existence until the 1900's according to this tool.