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Histlas — Interactive atlas of history

SELECTED DATE

December 1939

Civilizations

Territories expand and contract with the selected date. Broad reconstructions at selected historical stages; modern coastlines. Dashed boundaries distinguish settlements, claims and indirect or successor rule. Open an area for context and sources. Viking expansion was not one unified empire.

Ongoing wars

Battles this year

Science & Technology

Milestones through the selected date.

Railways

Tracks appear as the network grows. A few representative trains run on open lines during playback, changing locomotive type with the country and year. Green tram networks are city-level schematic footprints. Construction and train movement are illustrative; routes are schematic.

High-speed lines appear only from their opening dates. Use the button above to see the modern network; teal tracks show high-speed infrastructure; thin purple tracks connect them along conventional routes used by high-speed trains. Service milestones appear from their sourced dates and do not imply new railway construction.

Selected historical main routes and branches across Europe, the Americas, Asia, Africa and Oceania. This collection is not the complete railway network. Grey tracks mark known closed lines; other closures and later realignments are not exhaustively covered.

Explorations

Open an explorer, choose a voyage, then press Play at 1 month / s. Routes and ship positions are approximate.

Cities and populations

≈ Source estimate or value interpolated between known figures. Gaps remain estimated even where boundaries or counting methods changed. Figures for 2030 are forecasts. Open a place to view its sources.

REGION

Countries

Countries cover all available regions. Selecting a country outside the current region switches to World. Totals include all dates. Region and country filters use present-day geography; borders follow the selected date.

TERRAIN BORDERS

Border sources

Historical borders change with the selected date, including during playback. Territories and political status are approximate; coverage varies. No historical borders are drawn before 3400 BCE. From 2025 onwards, the map uses present-day borders as a reference, including future timeline dates.

3400 BCE–1885 CE and 2020–2024: Cliopatria · Bennett et al. (2025), Seshat Global History Databank · CC BY 4.0. Historical stages are held through their documented year ranges.

1886–2019: CShapes 2.0 · Schvitz et al. (2022), ETH Zurich · CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. Monthly snapshots use month-end political boundaries, including dependencies; these are not animated battle fronts.

US states and territories, 1783–2000: Newberry Library · Atlas of Historical County Boundaries. Month-end jurisdictions: solid state outlines, dashed territorial and district outlines. US administrative claims do not describe Indigenous sovereignty or effective occupation. No state outlines before September 1783; after 2000, present-day state outlines are a reference. US processing notes

Shapes are simplified for display; modern coastlines remain the background. Region and country filters use present-day geography. Sources and processing notes

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Terrain credits

Modern relief; historical coastlines and terrain changes are not reconstructed. Physical terrain: U.S. National Park Service, Natural Earth and Esri. Shaded relief © Esri; elevation data from USGS (GTOPO30, SRTM and NED). World Shaded Relief · source and terms Physical terrain · source and terms

Map layers●Cities◆Landmarks♜Civilizations⚑WarsBattles⚗Science & Technology⛵Explorations🚂Railways

December1939

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GO TO YEAR

Month

Playback speed

SHOW EVENTS ACROSS

Keep past events

EXPLORE HISTORY40000 BCE — 2030

Year on the timeline

JUMP TO SELECTION

Monthly precision

Population source years

Year	Population	Area / figure

Reported death toll

Estimate from the imported data, not independently verified.

Imported from user-supplied data. Historical figures and coordinates have not been independently verified.

The map area is approximate. It does not represent front lines or historical borders.

Source: Wikipedia ↗

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About Histlas

Histlas is an interactive atlas of history. Explore how cities grew, where conflicts unfolded, how railway networks developed and where explorers travelled—all on a map that changes with time.

Choose a region and the topics you want to see: cities, landmarks, empires, wars, battles, science and inventions, railways or explorations. Move the timeline to a date or press Play to watch history unfold. Select an item on the map to discover its story, dates and sources.

Follow railway networks as they expand, trace voyages with moving ships, or open Story Mode for a guided journey through selected historical events with narration. Use the filters to focus on the places and events that interest you.

The world map is open to exploration. Historical coverage includes Europe, the Americas, Africa, Russia, China, India, Japan, Southeast Asia, Australia and Oceania, the Middle East and Central Asia, with exploration routes reaching farther around the world. The collection continues to grow, and the level of detail varies between places and periods. Some smaller South American city entries begin with their first sourced population observation while historical founding research is pending.

History often comes with uncertainty. Approximate dates, routes and population estimates are marked or explained in item details. Region and country filters use present-day geography. Historical political borders follow the timeline; present-day reference borders are optional. Modern coastlines remain the background; historical routes and conflict areas are schematic. Coverage is selective, so a missing item does not mean that nothing happened there.

Sources are linked in individual item details. Basemap: Natural Earth, public domain.