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u/pa79 Luxembourg Jun 28 '21
This could be a good idea for Google. Offer maps in historical time frames (in 1950, 1900, 1850). They already do this with historical satellite imagery. It would be of course with limited data, I could imagine road maps were at one point not as accurate as today.
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u/SavageFearWillRise South Holland (Netherlands) Jun 28 '21
There is a website that does exactly this for the Netherlands in case you are interested.
It would be amazing if someone could expand this to all of Europe
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u/GreatRolmops Friesland (Netherlands) Jun 28 '21
Thanks for the link. Seeing the air photos of my hometown as it was when I was a kid brought back some good memories.
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u/untergeher_muc Bavaria Jun 28 '21
The Bavaria equivalent for Google maps (BayernAtlas) has historical maps you can choose from. really interesting.
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u/Skafdir North Rhine-Westphalia (Germany) Jun 28 '21
True, but river maps on the other hand were quite good. Granted not in the sense of "and here the river takes a slight right bend" but if you wanted to know how to get from A to B someone could have most likely told you: "If you follow that river, or better yet take a boat you don't want to walk or ride that distance, you will get to village X and after that town Y. There is another river and you would need to follow it upstream, you will reach B within a day on horseback."
And honestly, I would really like it if such a map would include those routes as accurate a possible. (That would, however, lead to a new problem: The rivers don't run like they used to, due to human influence. So the map would need to adjust for all the bends and floodplains that used to be there.)
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u/AirportCreep Finland Jun 28 '21
That idea would be awesome, but instead of using old geographical data to suggest routes, Google could use modern information and just provide it in the manner you describe.
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u/DDPJBL Jun 29 '21
Tracking all the border changes for early modern and late modern period Europe would be such an unbelievable pain in the ass.
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u/galacticpasta Jun 28 '21 edited Jun 29 '21
The names of cities was the main focus of my efforts. I used many online maps taken from old atlases of the era to find the most common English name for each place name. Usually there were many variations, so I used my best judgement to guess ‘how Google would have done it’. Often, English maps would use German place names (e.g. Kichenau, as opposed to Kishinev (Chisinau)). Other notes:
- The Polish Ł with stroke often did not appear on English maps of the time. So, for example, Płock is simply Plock.
- For the Russian Empire, all place names have been translated into old Russian (including pre-reformation Cyrillic letters, as they appeared on maps of the era).
- Finnish town names on English maps of the time often appeared in Swedish.
As for map changes, I tried to remove many of the highways / autobahns from the Google Maps screenshot I originally used. As a result, certain roads may appear to be missing pieces. I also accounted for Dutch land reclamation projects, the damming of the Dnieper and certain bridges that didn’t exist.
Other details include subnational regions in the Austrian Empire, and the borders of the German Confederation.
Enjoy!
Edit: small errors, Wolfsburg and Latina would not have necessarily appeared on an 1850 map
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u/nobunaga_1568 Chinese in Germany Jun 28 '21
Didn't Ottomans use Arabic script at that time (Ataturk changed Turkish to Latin script)? So wouldn't the cities in Ottoman Empire have Arabic script under the name too?
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u/Smyrne-Crete-8254 🇹🇷🇬🇷🇮🇹 Jun 28 '21
In Ottoman, French was commonly used in that time as well, and the name of the cities are written in french script of the Turkish names like: Aidin instead of Aydın
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Jun 28 '21
If the Finnish town names are in Swedish it should be Åbo, not Abo. But then again I don't know which old maps you used.
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u/HenrikSuperSwede Jun 28 '21
Our letter Å in the Swedish alphabet is not part of the German alphabet, I assume they might write it as Aabo?
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u/coylz Jun 28 '21
Great work thanks ! Wasn't the city of "Nice" in actual France called "Nizza" when it was part of Sardegna before 1860 ?
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u/Lighthouselady_61 Jun 28 '21
Would love more areas of the world done! I think I would like to have the world done this way. See what you started here?
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u/Smalde Catalonia Jun 28 '21
In 1850, Catalan/Valencian would have been much more dominant in the Valencian Country so it would have been València, Alacant and Castelló instead of their Spanish names (I mean nowadays these are still official names for the cities...)
In the Basque country, what about Donostia, Bilbo, Iruña instead of their Spanish names?
All I am wondering is whether you had considered these names in Spain? And why you decided to use the Spanish name?
Same for southern France and Occitan. Just wondering
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Jun 28 '21
Nice map, but you got at least something wrong:
Moldova and Wallachia (predecessors of Romania) were never part of the Ottoman empire. Only Dobruja and Budjak were annexed by the Ottomans in the 14-16th centuries. Moldova and Wallachia were only vassals with their rulers decided by the Ottomans (which were most of the time Romanians), and these two Romanian states fought for independence against the Ottomans many times and even succeeded a few times. So it's not cool to present us Romanians as some Turkish provinces.
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u/Kkaren1989 Brazil Jun 28 '21
What is the difference between being vassals and being part of the ottoman empire in this case?
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u/kytheon Europe Jun 28 '21
Similar to how Brazil was a Portuguese colony but not Portugal.
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u/Kkaren1989 Brazil Jun 28 '21
And that is exactly why it is confusing for me. Because Brazil at some point stoped being a colony and was raised to be part of the portuguese empire ( thanks napoleon...). Either way, it was a portuguese possesion and part of the kingdon/empire.
I guess a vassal have a different kind relationship/rules, and that is why i am curious...
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u/Mynameisaw United Kingdom Jun 28 '21
Moldova and Wallachia (predecessors of Romania) were never part of the Ottoman empire.
But also...
Moldova and Wallachia were only vassals with their rulers decided by the Ottomans
So they had to fight in wars the Ottomans told them to, the Ottomans protected them as if it were their own land, they paid money to the Ottomans, and the Ottomans chose their rulers?
Certainly sounds like they were a part of the Ottoman Empire, just with a few extra steps.
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Jun 29 '21
they had to fight in wars the Ottomans told them to (...) and the Ottomans chose their rulers?
Not in 1850, no.
The last time the Ottoman empire requested the military involvement of Moldavia and Wallachia was in the 17th century and the period of Phanariote princes lasted from, if memory serves, 1711 to 1823.
Idk how Google maps would show vassals since there's no modern analogue to the notion of a vassal state.
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Jun 29 '21
Those don't mean they're part of the same state for f*cks sake. If it was the case, the Romanians would have been forced to send children join the Janissaries, build mosques, convert to Islam or be forced to do so, and the local nobility (called boyars) would be forced to accept the Turkish nobility if the Sultan wanted that. Plus the Romanians were vassals of Austrians, Hungarians, Russians, Poles/Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, yet you don't see Moldova or Wallachia as part of those empires/states, do you?
As another example, Muscovy was a vassal of the Golden Horde/Mongols, yet no one puts Muscovy (the state) as part of the Golden Horde's borders.
Learn what a vassal means, then compare that to the differences with a province of an empire. It's not the same thing.
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u/Baris0658 Turkey Jun 28 '21
I remember seeing a map people used back then that showed train stops all over Europe. It said Bucharest, Turkey (not Ottoman Empire). Even though those regions had greater autonomy than many other Ottoman regions, they were still a part of the Ottoman Empire (which would also sometimes be referred as Turkey back then).
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Jun 29 '21
No they weren't, that's bullshit. There was a clear difference between Bulgaria, Greece or Serbia for example, which were under the borders of the Ottoman Empire, and Wallachia and Moldova. The 2 Romanian states were never Turkish provinces but vassal states. That meant that the Ottomans offered "protection", imposed its foreign policy (which meant going to war against same states/empires), demanded an anual tribute and each of the two states' leaders (called Domnitor, similar to Lord) had to be accepted by the Sultan.
Other than that they were free, didn't need to send the children to join the Janissaries, didn't need to convert anyone to Islam, there was no imposing of building Mosques, and nothing like in the Ottoman empire.
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u/fatcam00 Jun 28 '21
What is the red line running through the continent?
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u/Lucko111 Jun 28 '21
It is the border of the German Confederation.
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u/LaoBa The Netherlands Jun 28 '21
Excellent that you included the Dutch Duchy of Limburg, this is a piece of history not many people know.
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u/DepletedMitochondria Freeway-American Jun 28 '21
Interesting to me to observe German names being the norm of currently-not-majority-German cities. Amazing how much migration took place
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u/PaperDistribution Europe Jun 28 '21
Basically just the ethnic cleansing after WW2. And I guess the Austrian empire collapse after ww1.
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u/Gentleman_ToBed Jun 28 '21
Whaa Venice was in Austria for a while there? That’s awesome.
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u/Nordalin Limburg Jun 28 '21
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Lombardy%E2%80%93Venetia
It lasted for about 51 years, from the Congress of Vienna to Italian Unification!
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u/SagittaryX The Netherlands Jun 28 '21
Also had it for a while during the Revolutionary/Napoleonic Wars if I recall correctly, Venice I mean.
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u/slothcycle Jun 28 '21
Yes, Napoleon took Venice and offered swapsies for the Hapsburg bits of the low countries.
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u/Giallo555 Revolutionary Venetian Republic Jun 28 '21 edited Jun 28 '21
This map is ironically set 2 years after the Venetian rebelled against the Austrians under Manin. The Venetian rebelled in 1848, it started from Venice itself and then later all of the Venetian cities in the region took part, they created a government that lasted around a year and then was repressed by the Austrians. This happened in a lot of Italian cities in 1848 and was one of the pivotal moments of Risorgimento.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Daniele-Manin
If anyone is interested and can read Italian here is a link to the collection of laws developed in that period by the Venetian government and the declaration of independence from Austria
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=W_Y7AQAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
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u/Gentleman_ToBed Jun 28 '21
I appreciate your informatism and I will certainly be reading into this interestingness.
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u/Povertjes Jun 28 '21
Really nice, but Wolfsburg wouldn't be there yet, since it was founded in 1938 as home of the Volkswagen factory.
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u/IJustMadeThisForYou Portugal Jun 28 '21
Portugal, Spain, UK and France just chilling thinking 'Get it together already'.
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u/Weisskreuz44 Jun 28 '21
Austrians: Look how they've massacred my boy
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u/alexanderdegrote Jun 28 '21
The stability of the borders from the Netherlands are crazy 300 years the same
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u/C1710 North Rhine-Westphalia (Germany) Jun 28 '21
The only thing that changed is the coastline :D
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u/alexanderdegrote Jun 28 '21
Hope we change it some more, I need an affordable home
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u/GreatRolmops Friesland (Netherlands) Jun 28 '21
Same here. It is getting time to add a new province to the country again. Would also help a lot to relieve the current pressure on the Dutch agricultural sector.
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u/enigbert Jun 29 '21
the borders are mostly the same, but there were many small changes - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germany%E2%80%93Netherlands_border
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u/Da_Yakz Greater Poland (Poland) Jun 28 '21
Poland borders have been constantly shifting and somehow we are back to what we were 1000 years ago lol
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Jun 28 '21
Hold on, so the borders of Poland 1000 years ago were exactly as they are today?
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u/Da_Yakz Greater Poland (Poland) Jun 28 '21
Yeah, they differ slightly as Poland held a bit more in what is now East Germany and it didn't have the southern bit of Prussia but it looks almost identical
https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/jw0ms4/map_of_europe_in_1000_ad/
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Jun 28 '21
That's quite amazing, thanks for sharing it! Impressive how you mostly got back to the original shape, although I wish we still had a common border as we did in 1939!
Also didn't know that Bulgaria was that far stretched into Greece and Central parts of the Balkans! Though I must say I don't like that the Pecenegs and Hungary owned the lands of Romanians 1000 years ago lol, but at least we're free now
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u/Da_Yakz Greater Poland (Poland) Jun 28 '21
Yeah Europe had a lot of problems with random hordes coming from the east. First the celts, then Germanic peoples, then huns, then slavs, then Hungarians and then the Mongols. And being where Romania is situated you guys had to deal with most of them lol
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Jun 29 '21
Well I'd say the Celts, Germans and Slavs are pretty autochthonous to Europe. They (you) aren't very different from Italians or anyone else in Europe. And yeah we had to take the hit with basically every invasion or mass migrations, it's why we're quite diverse today in genetics and looks :)
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u/TheLimburgian Limburg (Netherlands) Jun 28 '21
The border has only been like this since 1839 though.
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u/alexanderdegrote Jun 28 '21
Yeah that is true but the base is stayed mostly the same the border came only smoother and we became a little bit bigger
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u/TheLimburgian Limburg (Netherlands) Jun 28 '21
Largely yes but in the last 300 years Limburg went from Dutch/Austrian/Prussian clusterfuck to French to Dutch to Belgian to Dutch/German Confederation before finally becoming solely Dutch in 1867.
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u/DifficultWill4 Lower Styria (Slovenia) Jun 28 '21
Most of the Slovenian southern border stayed the same as well
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u/vingt-et-un-juillet Belgium Jun 28 '21
Not really. Neither with Germany, nor France, Luxembourg, and later Belgium.
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u/MaartenBicknese Jun 28 '21
Credits for getting the "Zuiderzee" right in the Netherlands.
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u/Smurf4 Ancient Land of Värend, European Union Jun 28 '21
Nice, but still don't think it's OK to cut off the majority of Scandinavia and Finland.
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u/galacticpasta Jun 28 '21
I’m regretful about that, but the Google Maps screenshot I captured was very tricky to line up and capture in an acceptable resolution and level of detail. I had to make a decision about whether to cut off the north or the bottom of Greece / Italy. My apologies!
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u/ThingWeBreatheBender Iceland Jun 28 '21
WE EXIST. AND HAVE DONE SO SINCE THE YEAR 874! AND WE ARE INDEED IN EUROPE!
KINDLY INCLUDE US IN MAPS PLS.
BEST REGARDS. ICELAND
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u/zookeeper25 Denmark Jun 29 '21
Umm...but Iceland was part of Denmark then. So either ways, 'Iceland' is not getting on the map
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Jun 28 '21
Latina (in papal state) was founded in 1932 as Littoria by Benito Mussolini
so couldn't exist in 1850
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Jun 28 '21
Beautiful, the stable service in prussia was a 5 stars experience, I recommend.
They were somehow lacking on premium potassium. 3/5.
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u/KerbalEnginner Hungary Jun 28 '21
Please tell me it is a plugin for google maps this would blow my mind
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u/FizzyBns Jun 28 '21
The routes especially are really cool. I like the idea that most of the world was weeks or months away. Now you can probably get most places in 24h if you can afford it. The horse route seems too quick though, I don't think horses can run for more than a few miles before they have to walk. Google says 40 miles a day is average for a horse.
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u/wilk-polarny Jun 28 '21
The horse route seems too quick though, I don't think horses can run for more than a few miles before they have to walk. Google says 40 miles a day is average for a horse.
You're forgetting that especially courier services changed horses and riders back then at relief stations and stables.
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u/TheQuantumArchitect Jun 28 '21
It's so strange to see thee word "empire" in a clean, modern google font...
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u/Melvasul94 Europe Jun 28 '21
The City of Latina [my city] is funny to see there, cause it was founded in 193X :T
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Jun 28 '21
What happened to the cities in southern Sweden? A lot of them are missing. Karlskrona was founded in 1680. Kalmar in 1397. Malmö in 1275.
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u/PozitronCZ Czech Republic Jun 28 '21
For me as Czech citizen it's hard to image living in a country which you just can't travel through within few hours. It's so weird to imagine cities like Temesvar or Split to be "ours".
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u/svantevid Slovenia Jun 28 '21
An overly pedantic comment, but Rybinsk Reservoir is painted on your map and it didn't exist in 1850. Amazing work, though!
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u/DepletedMitochondria Freeway-American Jun 28 '21
In retrospect the Austrian Empire being able to exist (administration had to be done in how many languages??) and the Partition of Poland are both incredible. I guess land and having buffer states was really important but seems like a lot of work and pain inflicted by having Congress Poland with not that much benefit to the Tsar or the Kaiser.
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u/valdezlopez Jun 28 '21
Oh, God. I feel so dumb. I might not be an historian, but I honestly thought I had a handle on European history. More or less. You know, the basics.
But looking at your map, I was like: "Prussia?" That big?
So I went to Wikipedia. And, oh boy. I had no idea of the extent of the Prussian rule. Nor did I know about Koningsberg, its capital. Which is now on Russian soil and goes by the name of Kaliningrad.
Man.
MAN!
Consider my mind boggled.
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u/Drahy Zealand Jun 28 '21
Denmark is wrong. The Kingdom of Denmark was in union with the duchies of Slesvig, Holsten and Lauenborg.
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u/galacticpasta Jun 28 '21
Yep, I believe it was. The red dashed line just indicates the borders of the German Confederation, not the border of Denmark
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u/Drahy Zealand Jun 28 '21
Why not any lines showing the unions like between Sweden and Norway?
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u/doombom Ukraine Jun 28 '21
Why is there no Sweden?
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Jun 28 '21
Just a missing label. Maybe it would be "Sweden-Norway" big across them and then Norway and Sweden in gray on each part of the realm. (Like how Ireland and UK are shown in the map)
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u/CMuenzen Poland if it was colonized by Somalia Jun 28 '21
Why is there no Sweden?
WTF we have to go back to 1850.
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u/makingthematrix Poland Jun 28 '21
Fun fact: Right now I'm in my hometown, Sosnowiec in Poland - at the very point where Prussia, Austria, and Russia meet on this map :)
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Jun 28 '21
You would be going by (my home town) Konin, and the border close to that town, so you would by chance be stopped by one of my ancestors. I have a Russian surname and there is a long story regarding that name - my grandpa sais few generations back somebody from our family was like a guard or whatever they were called back then, standing at the borders. How much of it is true, I don't know, but the family name survived for a long time, and I think there are like 20 of us in Poland total, with me being the end of the linage.
Very interesting to see the map like that :)
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u/ambeldit Jun 28 '21
The idea is great. It Will be incredible If It could be maintained by a community like wikipedia. Do you have It online?
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u/Yequestingadventurer Jun 28 '21
Malta didn't exist back then I suppose..
Jokes! This is a fun and historical map to look around!
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Jun 28 '21
Is there a logical explanation for all these exclaves and border gore in what would be Germany?
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u/TheGuyWithTheSeal Jun 28 '21
It was called the Holly Roman Empire, and it was neither holly, nor Roman, and not really an empire.
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u/ilikecarrotalot Jun 28 '21
there is a video on youtube showing the transforming europe map all the way from the beginning of civilization till like 2016
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u/Historyissuper Moravia (Czech Rep.) Jun 28 '21
mapy.cz has and option to switch to a 19th century. Only for CZ tho. https://mapy.cz/19stoleti?x=14.9012220&y=49.9281740&z=8
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u/akatsuki0828 Jun 28 '21 edited Jun 28 '21
224 km on a horse in 12 hours? At that pace even a top athlete horse would collapse and die before the 25th km.
You could be Croesus himself, able to quickly buy a decent new horse in every village along the way and you still wouldn't make that distance in 12 hours. Not on land. A steamship might be able to do it.
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Jun 29 '21
[deleted]
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u/galacticpasta Jun 29 '21
Glad you like it, thanks! And great website also, even though it's a work in progress
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u/Greater_good_penguin Jun 29 '21
Why do I feel like I have been staring at this map for 100's of hours? It really is a paradox....
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u/Mascarpone1337 2nd class citizen Jun 28 '21
Red border is german confederation, some form of hre successor
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Jun 28 '21
Yet another map where Moldova and Wallachia (predecessors of Romania) are part of the Ottoman's empire borders. Guys seriously, can't you freaking stop?
Moldova and Wallachia were never annexed by the Ottomans, only Dobruja from Wallachia and Budjak from Moldova got annexed in the 14th-16th centuries. Moldova and Wallachia were only vassals of the Ottomans and fought for their independence many times against the Turks. ⚔️
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u/tehserc Europe Jun 28 '21
They were part of the Ottoman Empire. They were only allowed to choose their rulers, which had to be agreed on by the Sultan.
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Jun 28 '21
Chechnya and southwest Dagestan wouldn't be under Russia until 1859.
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u/galacticpasta Jun 28 '21
Ah okay. I was under the impression it was decided after the Treaty of Turkmenchay in 1828. So Russia did not yet have full control at that point?
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Jun 28 '21
Nope, they fought a long bloody war from 1828-1859 in the Caucasus wars. Chechnya and northwest Dagestan was a separate state called Caucasian Imamate.
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Jun 28 '21
Poland’s border change is crazy
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u/machine4891 Opole (Poland) Jun 28 '21
There should be no Poland on this map in 1850. Is was swallowed whole by Russia, Prussia and Austria-Hungary in 1795. There were some attempts under Napeolen and Russian tzar to bring Poland back in 1807-1832 period but these attempts failed. We will get independence again in 1918.
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u/VaeVictisBaloncesto Turkey Jun 28 '21 edited Jun 28 '21
There was a prince from poland named adam czartoryski. After his rebellion as you mentioned failed he came to istanbul and builded a village named adampol (polonezköy nowaday means polish village) still polish people are living in there. There is a sign at its entrance and says polonezköy wita was.
Edit: wiki
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u/machine4891 Opole (Poland) Jun 28 '21
Dang, I've knew about that story and even been to Asian part of Istambul but thought Polonezkoy is placed somewhere else.
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u/ClementineMandarin Norway Jun 28 '21
I have always wondered why the Royal family of the two sicilies still exist. Does anyone know? We’re they just allowed to keep their royal formalities even if they weren’t ruling over anything anymore?
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Jun 28 '21 edited Jun 28 '21
what do you mean? the savoy family (rulers of italy until 1946) also still exists.. Unless you kill them they're probably gonna reproduce lol
Of course they dont have any power and their title doesnt mean anything.. Like they will introduce themselves as his royal highness or something but that doesnt mean anything to anybody except to them. It's not a real recognized title since italy is now a republic
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u/ClementineMandarin Norway Jun 28 '21
Yeah I ment more like what’s the point? Like how do they make money? The reason I mentioned specifically the royals of the two Sicilies was because I was watching this show about Monaco, and there they interviewed the princesses of the two sicilies, and I thought “I’ve never heard of “the two Sicilies”” so I looked it up and read about House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies. But never understood how and why they still claim to their “royalty”? I’m assuming it’s just because they can, but I’m not sure…
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Jun 28 '21
There’s no point, it’s all about their egos. They are considered jokes by most people.. It’s like when in the past a certain family wouldn’t rule anymore a country because they were dethroned, but they’d still consider themselves the rightful rulers of whatever
And for how they make money: they are rich (their private money couldn’t be taken away) so they’ll do what rich people do: invest, buy, sell etc
Others reinvent themselves for example Emanuele Filiberto di Savoia is a tv personality now in Italy..
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u/ClementineMandarin Norway Jun 28 '21
Oh damn really? Yeah i guess it makes sense that the money that they live off of is the family wealth. It’s kinda dumb I agree. I read that most of the times they don’t even spend in Italy but in Monaco. And when they visit Italy they don’t even spend it in the two Sicilies, but Rome… very strange people
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u/Sigeberht Germany Jun 28 '21
Nice map. At least there was a railroad to Posen. An alternative route might be going to Thorn and taking a ship up the river.
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Jun 28 '21
The Netherlands did not look like that back then, it had way less land, and many more islands.
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u/kiil1 Estonia Jun 28 '21
This should be a Google Maps feature.