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Interactive World History Atlas Since 3000 BC

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Re: Interactive World History Atlas Since 3000 BC

#91
post #32
post #16

Seeing that it fails to portray the current map accurately, by not to separating PRC and ROC (taiwan), makes me question everything about older data

Both PRC and ROC maintain their sovereignty over the whole of mainland + islands, so this depiction is not exactly inaccurate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_Republic_o... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_China

If you call a tail a leg, how many legs does a dog have?

Four — someone claiming something doesn’t make it true.

Re: Interactive World History Atlas Since 3000 BC

#92
post #57
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then it should be striped, the same way Crimea is.

Should Mongolia be striped too? ROC does not officially recognise Mongolia's sovereignty. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:ROC_Administrative_a... I'll add that most of the "Internet's supporters of Taiwan independence" not only do not live in Taiwan, they have never even visited there -- if they did, they would know that even most of Taiwan's population consider Taiwan and (mainland) China to be one entity. A…

> most of Taiwan's population consider Taiwan and (mainland) China to be one entity

I very much doubt this is true — post a source, if you’ve got one

Re: Interactive World History Atlas Since 3000 BC

#93
post #59

How do you make this? It doesn't seem to be like Wikipedia has coordinates or map boundaries for ancient empires, so there's no simple way to mine the data. And if you don't mine it from somewhere, how do you know what to include? How many people will have heard enough about every part of the world to even be able to research ancient borders?

I guess something like this - add timelines for every known point (city, landmark, ritual site etc.) connect the dots in the same year with one another, then apply some reasonable territory estimate to round out the resulting blob, correct for visible mistakes manually.

Just for fun, how would you envision this process working for empires that weren't based on territorial control of cities and landmarks like the Mongols, or based on territorial control of land at all like the Hansa?

Re: Interactive World History Atlas Since 3000 BC

#94
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The map certainly is not built in a eurocentric way. It does reflect the fact that the political history of Eurasia and the Mediterranean region are much better studied and better understood, but this is hardly the fault of the creator of the map. Do you have a better political map of the Americas two thousand years ago?

The timeline spans "3000 BC" to now, but BC/CE itself is a European framework. The Han Dynasty, Maya, and Kingdom of Kush all had their own calendars and ways of marking significant time. Yet this "world" history uses Europe's reference point as universal. So yes, the map reflects available documentation. But the very framework - organizing all human history around BC/CE - already embeds a European perspective. The b…

[deleted]

Re: Interactive World History Atlas Since 3000 BC

#95

How do you make this? It doesn't seem to be like Wikipedia has coordinates or map boundaries for ancient empires, so there's no simple way to mine the data. And if you don't mine it from somewhere, how do you know what to include? How many people will have heard enough about every part of the world to even be able to research ancient borders?

It's a very fine-grained data, isn't it... Something like on August 24, 1652, 17:34 local, soldier X killed the last tribesman Y they were fighting and claimed the area for his king Z. And a lot of regions were/are disputed with no clear "ruler", e.g. the no man's land between North and South Korea.

I remember the old CIV games used to have a replay map of the entire world history, that was pretty cool.

Re: Interactive World History Atlas Since 3000 BC

#97
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should Mongolia be striped too? ROC does not officially recognise Mongolia's sovereignty. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:ROC_Administrative_a... I'll add that most of the "Internet's supporters of Taiwan independence" not only do not live in Taiwan, they have never even visited there -- if they did, they would know that even most of Taiwan's population consider Taiwan and (mainland) China to be one entity. A…

> most of Taiwan's population consider Taiwan and (mainland) China to be one entity I very much doubt this is true — post a source, if you’ve got one

My experience is a personal one -- a couple of jobs ago I was travelling extensively to Taiwan (on a multi-year ROC visa) and had lots of conversations with people.

I can offer a link to ROC constitution (above):

> Because the ROC constitution is, at least nominally, the constitution of all China, the amendments avoided any specific reference to the Taiwan area ...

Or this passage:

> The position of the PRC and the KMT in Taiwan remains that there is only one sovereign entity of China, united and indivisible.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Chinas#Current_situation

Or this passage:

> Domestically, the major political contention is between the Pan-Blue Coalition, which favors eventual Chinese unification under the ROC and promoting a pan-Chinese identity, ...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan

Or this passage:

> As of the 2008 election of President Ma Ying-jeou, the KMT agreed to the One China principle, but defined it as led by [ROC] rather than [PRC].

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_unification#Rise_of_th...

(KMT/Pan-Blue are the biggest party historically and currently, however Pan-Green were a majority recently.)

Or this poll result: (2024)

    Independence as soon as possible 3.8%

    Maintain status quo, move toward independence 22.4%

    Maintain status quo, decide at a later date 27.3%

    Maintain status quo indefinitely 33.6%
So about 60% are for doing nothing (either for now or forever), while 26% have expressed their preference for independence.

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan_independence_movement#O...

Re: Interactive World History Atlas Since 3000 BC

#98
post #78

Unfortunately, the bold title of that "project" doesn't hold well to subject that it pretends to cover. Maybe not complete, but that should be stated. For example - why since 3000 BC? Why "World History", the World started 3000 BC? I can continue about the mixing of "states" and populations" neither of which is complete on that map. I would get this as a nice try, but in reality it looks like a school assignment proj…

The world didn't start in 3,000 BC, but the world since 3,000 BC started exactly in 3,000 BC.

Re: Interactive World History Atlas Since 3000 BC

#99
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then don’t present it as an Atlas of world history. It should be called an Atlas of Eurocentric history. Furthermore, we would have had much more records from non-european sources if many European explorers and colonialists had not gone on a rampage destroying whatever indigenous documents and history they could lay their hands on. As a Latin American I’m sure you know about how the conquistadors destroyed written re…

The meaning of the word "history" is the study of historical records. The events that happened in times before writing are called "pre-history", and similarly the events that happened in places that didn't write things down are out of scope.

History has never been purely about studying literary records. Thucydides' History includes gratuitous use of oral speeches and discussion of events that predate writing. I can't think of a single modern historian who doesn't make use of archaeological data either.

Equating history with writing is a very anachronistic definition that was popular among Renaissance and early modern historians as a way of legitimizing their preference for classical scholarship over the "dark" middle ages. It's not a good rule of thumb for what is or isn't historical.

Re: Interactive World History Atlas Since 3000 BC

#100
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then don’t present it as an Atlas of world history. It should be called an Atlas of Eurocentric history. Furthermore, we would have had much more records from non-european sources if many European explorers and colonialists had not gone on a rampage destroying whatever indigenous documents and history they could lay their hands on. As a Latin American I’m sure you know about how the conquistadors destroyed written re…

I assume people will already understand that any purported compendium of history is necessarily incomplete.

Always assume that information is unevenly distributed, this statement included.
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