Ancient Civilizations of East and West
HistoryAncient & Medieval WorldAges 11–12
Use it with your class: students open it from a link or a QR code, with no account needed.
Next in Ancient & Medieval World
A hand-drawn map from the Mediterranean to East Asia, with major rivers and a timeline you can drag from 3500 BCE to 500 CE. Drag the marker to see ancient states form one by one along the Nile, the Tigris–Euphrates, the Indus–Ganges and the Yellow River–Yangtze, followed by the Greek city-states and the Roman Empire, with a running count of states founded. Click a region or a name on the map to read when it formed and its leading achievements.
Lesson: Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia; Ancient India; China from ancient times to the 7th century; Ancient Greece and Rome
What it shows
The first states arose where farming produced a regular food surplus. In the East this happened in fertile river valleys: Mesopotamia between the Tigris and Euphrates around 3500 BCE, Egypt on the Nile around 3200 BCE, then the Indus and Ganges valleys and China on the Yellow River and Yangtze. Floods brought water and rich silt, but controlling them needed organised labour, which supported kings and centralised states. In the West, Greek city-states and Rome grew on rugged coasts with little farmland, so seafaring, trade and crafts shaped their economies. The map sets these civilizations side by side with their main achievements.
How to use
Set Starting year on the timeline (negative = BCE) to −3500 and press Play; lower Timeline speed so students can note when each state appears. Turn on Show major rivers and ask what the eastern civilizations have in common, then use Group shown to switch between East and West and compare their natural settings. Click a region or name to read when it formed and its achievements, and have students build a comparison table.
Parameters you can change
- Starting year on the timeline (negative = BCE) -3500–500 year
- Group shown All, East, West
- Show major rivers
- Timeline speed 0.2–3 ×
Questions to explore
- Why did the earliest eastern states form along large rivers?
- How did the natural setting of Greece and Rome differ from that of Egypt or Mesopotamia?
- Which civilization on the map gave us numerals including zero, and which invented papermaking?
