OpenHistoricalMap

OpenHistoricalMap goes beyond the present, mapping places throughout the world… throughout the ages.
No community is too small, no story too obscure to add to this map.
Everyone has something to contribute, including you!

Go to the map • Learn more…

Contribute

To contribute to OpenHistoricalMap, go to the main map, zoom in to a place of interest, and click the “Edit” button. If you are familiar with editing OpenStreetMap, the OpenHistoricalMap editing experience is very similar. See the tagging guidelines for information on a few changes we’ve made to accommodate the time dimension.

We also maintain several software projects to facilitate map contributions and data reuse. Please report any issues and send us your ideas on GitHub or our forum.

Then and now

From OpenHistoricalMap's community projects:

Left: The Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam (present-day New York) in 1650. Right: The same location today.

On this day

Selected establishments and disestablishments on May 1:

1436: Stockholm receives city privileges.
1500: Pedro Álvares Cabral lands on the northeastern coast of present-day Brazil, claiming it for Portugal as the Ilha de Vera Cruz before later realizing that it is part of a continent rather than an island.
1707: The Acts of Union are passed, joining the Kingdoms of England and Scotland into a single Kingdom of Great Britain.
1888: St. John’s is incorporated as a city in Newfoundland and Labrador.
1933: In Italy, the Vercelli–Fara tramway closes after 49 years in operation.
1948: The Bermuda Railway closes after 17 years in operation.
1948: During the Arab–Israeli War, the early Byzantine-era village of Harrawi is depopulated.
1989: The People’s Republic of Kampuchea changes its name to the State of Cambodia and adopts a transitional constitution.

Statistics

1.8M
dated elements
443k
buildings
289k
railroad miles
131
average age
1934
average year
1,645
contributors

Source: Overpass API, Overpass API, Planet
April 1, 2025

Historical statistics

News

April 17, 2025: OpenRailwayMap has added a time slider and replaced OpenStreetMap demolished railways with OpenHistoricalMap data.
April 15, 2025: Follow our new Bluesky account.
April 10, 2025: The Nominatim API has moved to a new subdomain for consistency with OpenStreetMap.
February 12, 2025: QLever examples have been updated to reflect an improved data model for members of relations and ways and more metadata.
January 23, 2025: Basic authentication is no longer supported. Update your JOSM configuration to continue editing.