Tartary: How a Vast Map Name Disappeared

Drag the brass ruler from 1500 to 1900. Watch a single vast map label fragment into Russian Tartary, Chinese Tartary, and Independent Tartary, then dissolve into the modern states that absorbed the region. Click any region to read the primary source for that period.

Unrolling the parchment…
1771
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1st edition

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Polygons are simplified outlines of the regions described in each period's primary source. Tiles courtesy of OpenStreetMap contributors. "Tartary" was a European cartographic convention used for poorly-mapped Central and East Asian lands, not a single political empire — the term gradually fell out of use as surveys improved and the regions were absorbed into named modern states.