TL;DR – We map all of the eras of Humankind all in one map … okay many maps.

Mapping Humankind

One of the joys I get is mapping out universes, while I have charted out movie universes like the MCU and Grand Designs. However, one of my favourite things has been charting how 4X video games explore the world and its history. Today we are looking at the next entry in this series, charting all of Humankind from Amplitude Studios and Sega.

I had started making this map several times before running into roadblocks, like how do you make a map that shows Russia/Soviet Union or England/Great Britain? The way I previously fixed this issue with my Civilization map didn’t work here, and I started to wonder if I was Wile E. Coyote hitting my head against every ACME invention. However, one day it all clicked together, so I started down this road.

I worked it out by having a separate map for each era, all the cities, cultures, independent peoples, and wonders. Then we smashed it all together at the end in a wild kaleidoscope of overlapping entries. While putting this all together, I was still concerned it would not work. However, it kind of does. Before we start, I have to thank the Humankind Wiki for collating all the cities for me so I did not have to dive into the code. With that in mind, let us dive into the world of Humankind, which includes all the information from the base game and the Cultures of Africa Pack and Cultures of Latin America Pack DLCs. You can also see links to all the information in the map in our Humankind Cartographic Educational Database.

While all attempts have been made to ensure that everything is accurately placed, putting this together meant working from multiple sources, map projections, and sometimes not firm locations. As such, no matter how much you try, there might be slight discrepancies. With that in mind, let us dive into the maps.

Ancient Era

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We open with our most barren map, but also one that I already had issues with. When adding the Independent Peoples, I used the same colour to differentiate them from the other cultures. I thought there would be some overlap at some point, but already Mesopotamia was difficult to add all the different cultures and make it work visually. Most of the significant areas get an entry even if this is the most grey the maps get in this entry.

Classical Era

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We are already stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Ganges Delta in the Classical Era. I think one of the significant strengths of Humankind is that we get to see different eras of cultures that tend to get lumped together, like India and China. This is also the map that fills me with the most frustrations because it has one entry that I could not locate. My Google-fu and scanning through journals did not help me find the Garamantes city Zynkekra. Please let me know if you can point me to where Zynkekra is.

Medieval Era

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In the Medieval Era, we start seeing some big land empires popping up, whilst also branching into North America, Southeast Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa. On that front, one area that feels missing in the game so far is Southeast Asia and the Pacific. Given we have been getting regional DLC, maybe that will change in the future, will at least, I hope so.   

Early Modern Era 

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Industrial Era

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With the Industrial Era, we probably see the most significant concentration in Europe, with six major empires trying to find a place. It is also where we start to see countries reflecting what we know in the world today begin to take shape. We also see the end of any more Independent Peoples added to the game, and I wondered why it stopped around here because, in my playthroughs, there tends to be space for them on the map.  

Contemporary Era 

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Then we reach today, which might be my favourite one of the maps, but then this one has Australia in it, so I might just be biased on that front. Also, with the Cold War era clash of the Americans and the Soviets, we get what is probably the most coverage out of all of the era maps. There was no way to do a map like this without wading into all sorts of controversies regarding border locations, i.e. what do you do about Taiwan and Kashmir. In the end, you have to make a call, and I tended to go with the de facto placements. It also led to one of the more difficult choices regarding what colour to use for each culture. I like to use a colour from one of their flags or national emblems where possible. But the Soviets, Turkey, Japan, and China all share similar overlaps in their flags. I had to go into the flag for Moscow to find some way to breach the impasse.

Full Eras Map 

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We end with the final map that combines all the previous maps into what looks like some artwork where they explode paint cans. I was honestly not sure how it would look at the end, but I kind of like it more and more each time I look at it. Some cultures get a bit lost in the fray, but I think there is no way to do a map like this and not have that happen somehow. It is also full of all these tiny imperfections that part of me wants to go through pixel by pixel and fix, but the rational part of my head knows that it would probably take as long as all the maps put together and that imperfections are what brings character. I also like that we see all these areas of concentration, like in the Valley of Mexico, even though it took forever to get those city placements right.

With that, we come to the end of our map of Humankind, though we will update it if anything new comes out. Also, if you have another 4X game that you think would be good to be mapped, let us know in the comments below.

By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Twitter Here, when he’s not chatting about Movies and TV, he’ll be talking about International Relations, or the Solar System.

Have you seen any odd maps in Movies, TV or Video Games?, let us know in the comments below, feel free to share this review on any of the social medias and you can follow us Here. Check out all our past reviews and articles Here, and have a happy day.

Credits –

– The World Map that we used as a base several iterations ago was created by ‘San Jose’ which is shared with a Creative Commons Licence.

– The Nation detail maps America, Antarctica, Australia 1, Australia 2, Canada, Caribbean, China, Cook Islands, Europe Relief, Fiji, French Polynesia, Gilbert Islands, Germany, Greece, Hawaii, Italy, Japan, India, New Zealand, Netherlands, Northern Mariana Islands, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Micronesia, Samoa, Scandinavia, South Africa, Spain, Taiwan, Tonga, Valley of Mexico & Vietnam that we used for reference were shared with a Creative Commons Licence or was in the public domain. They were originally created by Aotearoa, Alexrk2, Antigoni, E Pluribus Anthony, Fut Perf, Htonl, Koyos, L. Claudel, Li Chao, Maximilian Dörrbecker, NASA, NgaViet, NordNordWest, Shadowfox, Silver Spoon, Szczureq, Tubs, Tyk, Yavidaxiu & Yug.

– The River Maps Amazon, Amu Darya, Amur, Aras, Colorado, Columbia, Congo, Danube, Dnieper, Don, Elbe, Fraser, Horn of Africa Rivers, Indus, Karun, Kizilirmak, Kuban, Lena, Liao, Limpopo, Loire, Mackenzie, Mekong and Irrawaddy, Niger, Nile, Ob, Okavango, Pearl, Rhein, Río de la Plata, Sefīd, Saint Lawrence, São Francisco, Syr Darya, Tarim, Tigris and The Euphrates, Vistula, Volga, Yangtze, Yellow, Yenisei, Yukon & Zambezi  that we used as a guide for this Map was shared with a Creative Commons Licence or in the Public Domain. They were originally created by СафроновАВ, DEMIS, Emma Pease, Francis McLloyd, Hel-Hama, Imagico, Keenan Pepper, Kmusser, MatthiasKabel, Qyd, Shannon1, Sting, Ulamm & The United Nations.