Wolfram Function Repository

Instant-use add-on functions for the Wolfram Language

Function Repository Resource:

 HistoricalCountryAnimate

Source Notebook

Show an animation of the full history of a historical country's territory, along with borders of any modern country it intersected during a given year

Contributed by: Brian Wood

ResourceFunction["HistoricalCountryAnimate"][entity]

produces an animation of the history of entity, displaying its geographic territory over time.

Details and Options

ResourceFunction["HistoricalCountryAnimate"] requires internet connectivity for knowledgebase lookups.
ResourceFunction["HistoricalCountryAnimate"] can be applied to any "HistoricalCountry" entity with polygons for multiple years.
By default, ResourceFunction["HistoricalCountryAnimate"] will return an interactive animation with tooltips.
Evaluation may take a few minutes, depending on system specs.
Setting "CurrentCountries"→True generates a map that includes the borders of modern countries overlapping the historical country.
Setting "Tooltips"→True adds tooltips to the overlapping modern countries.
In general, setting "Rasterize"→True increases computation time but produces a smoother final animation.
PlotStyle customizes the display of overlapping countries, if included.

Examples

Basic Examples (1) 

View the historical geographic development of the Byzantine Empire:

In[1]:=
ResourceFunction["HistoricalCountryAnimate"][ Entity["HistoricalCountry", "ByzantineEmpire"]]
Out[1]=

Options (6) 

CurrentCountries (1) 

View the history of the Roman Republic, excluding modern country borders:

In[2]:=
ResourceFunction["HistoricalCountryAnimate"][ Entity["HistoricalCountry", "RomanRepublic"], "CurrentCountries" -> False]
Out[2]=

Tooltips (2) 

View the historical Ottoman Empire without tooltips:

In[3]:=
ResourceFunction["HistoricalCountryAnimate"][ Entity["HistoricalCountry", "OttomanEmpire"], "Tooltips" -> False]
Out[3]=

If "CurrentCountries" is set to False, the "Tooltips" setting will be ignored:

In[4]:=
ResourceFunction["HistoricalCountryAnimate"][ Entity["HistoricalCountry", "OttomanEmpire"], "CurrentCountries" -> False, "Tooltips" -> True]
Out[4]=

GeoBackground (1) 

View the progression of the Mongol Empire over a relief map to show terrain:

In[5]:=
ResourceFunction["HistoricalCountryAnimate"][ Entity["HistoricalCountry", "MongolEmpire"], "CurrentCountries" -> False, GeoBackground -> "ReliefMap"]
Out[5]=

PlotStyle (1) 

Use PlotStyle to customize the color of the map and labels:

In[6]:=
ResourceFunction["HistoricalCountryAnimate"][ Entity["HistoricalCountry", "AssyrianEmpire"], PlotStyle -> Red]
Out[6]=

Rasterize (1) 

Rasterize the frames (and remove tooltips) for a smoother-running animation:

In[7]:=
ResourceFunction["HistoricalCountryAnimate"][ Entity["HistoricalCountry", "RomanEmpire"], "Rasterize" -> True]
Out[7]=

Possible Issues (1) 

HistoricalCountryAnimate will only work for "HistoricalCountry" entities that include at least one polygon in the system. Any other input will result in an unevaluated expression:

In[8]:=
ResourceFunction["HistoricalCountryAnimate"][ Entity["HistoricalPeriod", "OttomanGreece"]]
Out[8]=

Publisher

Brian Wood

Version History

  • 4.0.0 – 14 February 2020
  • 3.0.0 – 12 August 2019
  • 2.0.0 – 21 June 2019
  • 1.0.0 – 19 June 2019

Related Resources

License Information