History Globe

A 3D globe of biblical history: the places the Bible names, the states around them year by year from 3500 BC to AD 1300, and the cities, roads and events of the ancient world. The Bible’s places come with their verses, and every date, border and location comes with its source.

• 1288places named in the Bible
• 531other cities of the ancient world
• 2153people of the Bible
• 329dated events
• 46guided tours
• 155articles on places

#What you can do

• See a chapter on the map Type “Acts 16” or “Gen 12” in the search box; the map moves to the year of the chapter and shows its places. The page link keeps this view, so it can be shared.
• Move through time The slider changes the year; borders, cities and roads follow it. A city appears in the year it was built and fades out in the year it was destroyed. Crossed swords mark battles and sieges in their years. The settings can keep the map to what the Bible tells.
• Follow a tour A tour takes you through a story stop by stop — Abraham, the Exodus, Paul’s journeys — with the passage, the year, the distance, the time on foot and the relief of the way: along the Roman roads in Roman times, in a straight line before them.
• Read the verses Every place card lists the verses that name the place; select one to read it.
• Find a person A person’s card shows their family as the text records it, the places central to their story and the tours that follow their route (Paul’s journeys), and moves the map to their time.
• Teach with it Build your own lesson with “Add to a lesson” on the place cards and share it as a link. The timeline’s menu (⋯) prints an A4 sheet with the map and verses, an outline map for pupils or a quiz (where did it happen?, on paper or on screen with the answer on the map), saves the map as an image, shows it on a projector, or lays Jerusalem’s walls at their true size over Babylon, Rome or your own town.
• Work offline In the settings, “Save” downloads the map, the data, the photos and the relief of the Near East; after that the globe opens with no network, in a classroom or on the road.
• Embed it One line puts the map of a chapter on another site: Embedding.
• Take the data Which places each verse names, the places with their points, the events and the tours, as JSON files under CC BY 4.0: Open data.
• Link your own texts One line on your site turns the Bible places your articles and sermons name into links with a card: Places in any text.

#Reading the map

• Years. “c.” marks an approximate year. Where the date is disputed (the Exodus, the patriarchs), the tour’s year is only a reference point for the map and is also marked “c.”.
• A faded place had not yet been built, lay in ruins or no longer existed in the chosen year; the card gives the dates and their sources. Places named only in the New Testament are faded before its events.
• A hollow marker means the location is uncertain: scholars propose more than one site, or the single proposed site is tentative. For a disputed place the card shows every proposed site with OpenBible’s share (an estimate, not a scholarly consensus); for a tentative one it says so.
• Grey names mark places of the ancient world that the Bible does not name (Ugarit, Hattusa, Mari), shown only in the years each existed.
• Scripture speaks for itself. Dates and names on the map are not meant to settle scholarly disputes about the text; the card notes when a question is open.

#Principles

• Every date, border and location has a source, and the sources are listed: Data and methodology.
• Precision over quantity. Doubtful dates are left out rather than guessed, and uncertain sites are marked as uncertain.
• Free, with no account, no cookies and no analytics.

#Place and tour pages

Every place and tour also has a plain page with its history, events, verses and a button that opens it on the map. Common questions — where a place was, how far, when — have short answers with their sources and the map's view.

Data as of 3 October 2026