Submitted by Taps Coogan on the 7th of April 2018 to The Sounding Line.

As part of our ongoing series of historical video-maps, we present: ‘Visualizing Empires Decline.’ Unlike most of our video-maps, this not a map per say, but shows bubbles whose size represents the total land extent of the four major European empires: Britain, France, Spain, and Portugal. As each empire gains or loses territory, the bubbles absorb or eject chucks of land and change size.

The pace at which empires collapse can be startling and is perhaps best exemplified by France. The French Empire slowly grew over hundreds of years and maintained the bulk of its territorial extent into the 1950s only to implode seemingly overnight in 1960 during the Algerian War.

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
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 China Every Year
Every Nuclear Explosion in History
Every Year in The History of the Ottoman Empire
The History of the Middle East

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