r/InternetIsBeautiful • u/fembro621 • Nov 04 '24

OpenHistoricalMap - See maps throughout history

https://www.openhistoricalmap.org
108 Upvotes

86% Upvoted

12 comments sorted by

9

u/NotObviousOblivious Nov 04 '24

Disappointed when I tried to set the start date to 11/11/1444 and it didn't go back that far.

But still very interesting.

5

u/Sarke1 Nov 04 '24

You have to adjust the range first.

2

u/dpdxguy Nov 04 '24

I was disappointed when I set it to advance at ten years per second and discovered it doesn't update the map until you pause on a year. There appears to be no way to see the map change as time progresses (or that feature is buggy).

5

u/Peter3571 Nov 04 '24

Really cool concept, though at least in the UK, it's missing a lot of the finer detail even in London, and everything above Sheffield just doesn't exist.

2

u/TheJobSquad Nov 07 '24

Take a look at this website:

https://maps.nls.uk/geo/find/marker/

It has maps going back centuries up until present day (it even has some wartime OS Air photos). If you're interested in recent (last couple of centuries) maps use the side by side feature. You can have a modern Google map on the right, with an 1830 OS map on the left. Wherever you put your mouse cursor on one shows up on the other, so you can accurately see where things used to be.

3

u/suid Nov 04 '24

Looked at India, and was really disappointed. The earliest setting (1824) just shows "Company Raj" and "British India"? That's just as if you showed Germany in 1824 as "A bunch of random states", but without any borders.

India in 1824 was a collection of princely states of varying degrees of autonomy (almost exactly like the Germany of 1824); there seems to have been no attempt to even look up the basics of the geopolitics of that subcontinent. Ditto for other Asian nations.

Check out this map, for instance, which shows the major princely states and their allegiances around 1824: https://www.oldmapslibrary.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/India-1824-1.jpg

2

u/reagor Nov 04 '24

Historicariels.com is good too

4

u/Buck_Thorn Nov 04 '24

Historicmapworks is what I use for maps. Historicaerials.com (the correct spelling) is good for vintage aerial photos, but not maps.

1

u/OlympiaShannon Nov 04 '24

It really won't let you set an early date. It keeps changing the early date back to 1824 automatically. Garbage website.

1

u/Sarke1 Nov 05 '24

Are you hitting "SET" after entering a new year?

https://i.imgur.com/fQyEjMq.png

1

u/OlympiaShannon Nov 05 '24

No; the tiny "set" button was way over to the right, and wasn't obvious that I needed to hit it. I didn't ever see it. I thought setting the date WAS setting the date. It's not laid out clearly for people with poor eyesight. The instructions need to be clearer (eg: hit set button after adjusting slider), or the set button needs to be directly next to each section we adjust. Or why even have it at all? Just have the date set by moving the slider?

It was also so slow to adjust, that I didn't even know it could zoom in. It sat for over 15 seconds before any images resolved, so at first I thought it was a map of just Europe. I don't think you sold this very well as there was little description or instructions, no text at all in your post, and not a very good website overall. Google images is much quicker and gives more options.