The political map of Europe might look tidy, with its neat lines and country labels. But that surface hides something older and more complex. Long before today’s nation-states, Europe was a patchwork of historical regions — shaped by language, religion, feudal loyalties, and cultural traditions that ran deeper than many of today’s borders.
The map below, made by Reddit user Poussin_Casoar, tries to bring that older geography back into view. It’s version 1.3 of an ongoing project to trace the historical and cultural regions of Europe — not by modern political divisions, but by how people used to organize, identify, and refer to the lands they lived on.
To create the map, the author drew on historical atlases, linguistic maps, Wikipedia entries, and older administrative boundaries. It’s not meant to be precise down to every kilometer, and the creator openly acknowledges that. The idea is to offer a general, visually coherent overview that helps people locate names they might encounter in old documents or family records — places that have since vanished from official maps.
At first glance, the map might look unfamiliar, and that’s the point. Instead of France, Spain, or Germany, you’ll see regions like Languedoc, Navarre, and Franconia. In many parts of Europe, what we now call “countries” were once made up of distinct territories, often with their own languages or dialects, legal codes, and local elites.
In the Iberian Peninsula, for example, you’ll find Castile, Aragon, Andalusia, and Galicia — each with roots going back to the Reconquista and earlier. In what’s now France, regions like Brittany, Provence, and Normandy once had strong local identities, and in some cases, their own ruling dynasties.
Germany, before unification in the 19th century, was an especially fragmented landscape. You’ll see regions like Swabia, Franconia, Thuringia, and Saxony, reflecting the decentralized nature of the Holy Roman Empire.
Moving further east, the names might be less familiar unless you’ve spent time with historical documents or family records. Areas like Ruthenia, Volhynia, and Podolia speak to the shifting borders and influences of Poland, Lithuania, Austria-Hungary, and Russia over the centuries.
The Balkans, with their layered history of Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman, and Slavic rule, show regions like Epirus, Moesia, and Herzegovina. The Caucasus is equally intricate, with names like Imereti, Kartli, and Shirvan representing territories that existed long before today’s borders between Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan were drawn.
In Scandinavia and the British Isles, you’ll see Jutland, Scania, Mercia, and Strathclyde — names that hint at tribal kingdoms and early medieval divisions, many of which still echo in modern regional pride and identity.
Russia is mapped as it was before imperial expansion solidified its modern shape. Regions like Novgorod, Tver, and Ryazan reflect a time when power was distributed among competing principalities rather than concentrated in Moscow.
The purpose of this map is not to promote separatism or dispute current borders, but to offer a deeper understanding of Europe’s long-term regional diversity. It shows how many identities survived across centuries of political change — and how the memory of these regions still lingers in language, tradition, and sometimes even in local politics.
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Hi,
There has been several updates on this map.
The most recent one is here : https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/1ku59pj/historical_regions_of_europe_v13/