A History of the World in 500 Maps

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Trace the history of the world in over 500 easy-to-follow maps, from the dawn of humanity to the present day. In Oceania, the Maori settlers of New Zealand are having to adapt to their new homeland as the native fauna gets hunted to extinction. The Americas

World in 500 BCE.png - Wikimedia Commons File:World in 500 BCE.png - Wikimedia Commons

One phenomenon which certainly appears in West Africa at this time, though probably unrelated to the slave trade, occurs on the inland grasslands south of the Sahara. A number of campaigns –“jihads”– install puritanical Muslim groups as rulers of several kingdoms. These are mostly the work of members of the Fulani, a cattle herding and trading people who have lived in and around the trading towns of the region for centuries. Change in North America First, Genghis Khan and his successors forged the huge Mongol empire, which took in much of Eurasia, from Russia to China. After Mongol rule had declined, another central Asian conqueror, Timur the Lame, briefly seized a large territory.Every neighboring region has been affected by this development, to a greater or lesser extent. The Arabs have brought a vast territory under their control, with chunks of both Europe (in Spain and Portugal) and the Indian sub-continent (most of modern-day Pakistan) falling to them. West Africa is beginning to feel the impact of Islam as Muslim merchants bring their faith with them to the region, and Muslim armies have penetrated deep into Central Asia. Here they are encountering an expansionist Chinese empire. The clash between the two great powers of the period will result in the spread of a key technology in world history, when Chinese captives pass on the technology of paper-making to their Muslim captors. East Asia Indian history has witnessed the rise of the greatest empire since the Mauryan empire, in the 4th and 3rd centuries BCE. This is the Gupta empire, and this period is widely seen as one of the high points of Classical Indian civilization. By this date, however, the Gupta state is in decline. Europe In Africa, cattle-herding and farming have probably reached as far south as the Great Lakes region by now. The Americas

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In the political sphere, also, Europe and its offshoots in the Americas have been experiencing unprecedented change. In England, the Glorious Revolution of 1688-9 led to rights of individual citizens being guaranteed by law. Ironically, these very principles which Britain pioneered led to a rebellion against her by her American colonies. Most of these have now broken away from British rule to form a new nation with its own deliberately designed constitution, the United States of America. The Americas have seen a further expansion of farming. In Central America, the first civilization of the Western Hemisphere has arisen, that of the Olmecs. In South America, intensive trade links between the high Andes and the coastal plains of Peru are creating a single cultural area. In North America, irrigation farming is already becoming established in the dry south-west of the present-day United States. Further east the Adena culture is emerging in the Mississippi valley, starting a tradition of mound-building which will last for two and a half millennia. The eastern branch of the latter migration has moved eastward into the Pacific. Here, crossing huge ocean distances in their small canoes, they have by now reached the islands of Fiji, Tonga and Samoa. They are the ancestral Polynesians. AfricaIndustrialization has not only has not only been spreading; it has also been progressing at an ever-increasing rate. Technological advances of the period include telegraphy, sewing machines, reinforced steel, machine guns and typewriters. Two developments stand out in this period as highly significant for the history of world technology. Paper has been invented in Han China. This will make the dissemination of written information much easier and cheaper. The heavy plow probably appears about now in northern Europe. This will be of great importance in opening up the heavy clay lowlands of the region to arable farming, and so be one the keys to future European growth. The Dutch empire in South East Asia expands; and the British are now getting more involved in the region. Most notably, they establish a base of operations on the small island of Singapore. Oceania

World map 500 AD - World History Maps World map 500 AD - World History Maps

Agriculture is also practiced in a few places in the Western Hemisphere, in parts of Mexico and Peru. The rest of the populations of North and South America are hunter-gatherers. In North America, the Hopewell farming culture of the eastern forests has vanished; in South America the Moche civilization continues to flourish. Technology

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The other great empire of the period is that ruled by the Tang dynasty of China. Under the Tang, China has been reunified and reinvigorated. This is a period of great artistic and literary achievement, and China acts as a powerfully attractive exemplar of civilization for its neighbors. Japan especially is experiencing a great cultural flowering at this time. Europe The long wars in Europe have left Britain’s navy in undisputed mastery of the seas. As well as underpinning the growing reach of the British Empire, this navy is used to keep the seas open to the trade of all nations – which in reality means Western nations. No people seeking to resist western commercial power can shut it out for long, as the British navy can brush away any non-Western nations’ attempts to defend ports and coasts. All countries with coasts are open to invasion, wherever and whenever Britain or her allies choose to strike. An urban civilization has also appeared on the Indian sub-continent, in the Indus valley. This shows advanced features such as town planning and effective drainage systems. East Asia In North America, arctic hunters, ancestors of the present-day Inuit, are beginning to spread over the far north. In South America, farming is expanding over a wide area, and large, permanent villages are appearing in Peru. The majority of the continent, however, remains home to hunter-gatherers. In central America, the Mayan civilization is on the rise, while in Mexico one of the largest cities of the pre-Columbian Americas, Teotihuacan, is in its pomp.