Looking for a visualization of North American political boundaries over time

balooga
2025-01-23T15:35:45Z

Lately I've been taking an interest in American westward expansion and trying to get a better understanding of how the lines were drawn on maps in the past. Can anyone recommend a good video or interactive visualization that I can scroll back and forward through time to see the changes in detail?

Things I'm particularly interested in tracking:

Indigenous lands (specifically how the boundaries of traditional/ancestral lands evolved into modern-day reservations)

European claims like those of Britain, France, and Spain

What was considered US/Canada/Mexico territory vs. no man's land or frontier at different points in time, from the governance standpoint of each of those nations

Large and rapid settling movements like the Mormons into Utah, Oklahoma land rush, California gold rush, etc.

Other factors like homesteading programs (I don't know much about this) and the transcontinental railroad, confederacy borders, trail of tears, etc.

Notable battles/massacres marking bloody land disputes

I mean I guess that's a lot, this is basically "tell me about all of American history." 😂

I feel like I have a pretty decent grasp of the general political timeline and important events, I'm just realizing lately that I don't have a cohesive mental model of how it all fits on a map and changed over the years. I did find the Wikipedia page on Territorial Evolution of the United States to be interesting but it's a bit overwhelming and not very digestible. It contains this animated gif, which is awesome but I can't scroll through it at my own pace, and it's USA only.

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