Submitted by Taps Coogan on the 13th of January 2019 to The Sounding Line.

As part of our ongoing series of historical video-maps, we present ‘4,500 Years of Battles in One Map’ by YouTube creator Cottereau. The following map shows every one of the nearly 12,000 battles referenced on Wikipedia since 2,500 BC. It also tallies the number of battles won by notable civilizations throughout history.

Here is how Cottereau describes the methodology:

The rules:

• Battles are included only if they have a Wikipedia article
• Each country can only have one predecessor state at the same time (eg. the UK’s predecessor is England, but not Scotland)

The methodology: I used Wikipedia as a directory of battles. Here is how I built the battle database:

1. I created a query with Wikidata Query to get the list of all articles tagged as “battle” by Wikipedia. This gives me about 12,000 battles

2. I downloaded the data that is included in the top right hand table of every of those Wikipedia article. I did it for the following versions of Wikipedia: English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Arabic, Chinese, Russian, Greek, Turkish, Serbo-Croatian, Japanese, Danish, Norwegian, Slovakian, Dutch, Polish, Hungarian, Czech, Hindi, Hebrew, Basque, Bulgarian, Romanian, Catalan, Finnish, Swedish, Vietnamese, Persian, Indonesian, Korean

3. I cleaned up the data on Excel to remove double entries and obtained 10,624 unique battles

4. I created an index of countries with their predecessor states:

• France (476 – 2018): Frankish Kingdom, Frankish Empire, West Francia, Kingdom of France, French Empire, French Republic
• UK-England (927 – 2018): Kingdom of England, Commonwealth of England, Great Britain, United Kingdom
• USA (1776 – 2018): American patriots, USA
• Russia (882 – 2018) : Kievan Rus’, Muscovy, Russian Empire, Bolsheviks, USSR, Russian Federation
• Germany (843 – 2018) : East Francia, Kingdom of Germany, Holy Roman Empire, Confederation of the Rhine, German Confederation, North German Confederation, German Empire, Germany• Spain (718 – 2018) : Castile, Spain
• Poland (960 – 2018) : Kingdom of Poland, Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Duchy of Warsaw, Polish insurgents, Poland
• Rome (753 BC – 476) : Roman Kingdom, Roman Republic, Roman Empire, Western Roman Empire
• China (2500 BC – 2018) : Xia, Shang, Zhou, Qin, Han, 3 Kingdoms, Jin, Sui, Tang, 10 Kingdoms, Song, Yuan, Ming, China
• Turkey (1037 – 2018): Seljuk empire, Anatolian Turks, Ottoman Empire, Turkey

While the video has an inevitable bias toward civilizations that kept written historical records that have been preserved and studied, it is fascinating nonetheless.

To see other interesting historical maps check out:
The History of the Greeks
Every Year of the Roman Empire
Every Other Day of the Napoleonic Wars
Every Day of World War I
Every Day of World War II
Everyday of World War II in the Pacific
The History of the World Every Year
The Five Largest Cities Throughout History
Every Major Plague Epidemic in History
The Evolution of Modern Government
The Rise of Religions Throughout History
The History of Communism Since 1850
The History of Urbanization
The History of South America
How the World Got Obese
The History of North America
The History of Africa
The History of China Every Year
Every Nuclear Explosion in History
Every Year in The History of the Ottoman Empire
The History of the Middle East
The Loss of Native American Lands Within the US Every Year
Every Ruler in Europe Since 400 BC
Every Day of the Korean War
The Results of Every US Presidential Election in History
Every Week of the American War of Independence
The Rise and Fall of the Mongol Empire
The Population of Every Civilization in Europe Every Year Since 400 BC
The Rise and Fall of the French Empire
The Rise and Fall of the British Empire
The Rise and Fall of the Spanish Empire
The History of the Reconquista
The History of South Asia
The Great Turkish War
Every Other Day of the Russian Civil War
Every Year in the History of the British Isles
Every European Country’s Maximum Extent
The French Invasion of Mexico
Every Ruler of Russia and Its Borders Since 880 AD
The Great Northern War
The Ancient History of the Middle East, Every Year
The Conquests of Alexander the Great, Every Month
The Rise and Fall of the Inca Empire, Every Year
Every Month of the Hundred Years’ War
Ancient Mesoamerica, Every Year
The Rise and Fall of the Hapsburg Dynasty
Every Year in the History of Scandinavia
The Largest Cities in North America Since 900 BC
The Rise and Fall of the Japanese Empire

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