About This Project

A free, interactive visualization of Earth's deep history

What Is the Pangea Map?

The Pangea Interactive Map is a free educational tool that lets you explore 540 million years of continental drift, from the Cambrian explosion all the way to the present day. You can watch Earth's landmasses slowly collide to form the supercontinent Pangea, then break apart into the continents we know today.

You can also search for any country and see where it was located at any point in Earth's history, or plot where a dinosaur species lived, overlaid on the ancient geography of the time.

The Data Behind It

The paleogeographic reconstructions are powered by GPlates, an open-source plate tectonics software developed by a collaboration of universities and research institutions. GPlates provides scientifically peer-reviewed models of how the tectonic plates have moved over geological time.

The optional Paleotopography basemap shows reconstructed elevation and bathymetry — ancient shorelines, flooded continents, shallow seas, and mountain belts — from the PALEOMAP PaleoDEMs of Scotese & Wright (2018), doi:10.5281/zenodo.5460860, used under CC BY 4.0. These are geological reconstructions, not observations, and uncertainty grows further back in time.

Continental positions come from the GPlates Web Service (Müller et al. 2019 for 0–250 Ma, Merdith et al. 2021 for older times). Ancient elevation and shorelines come from the PALEOMAP PaleoDEMs of Scotese & Wright (2018, CC BY 4.0). Dinosaur fossils come from the Paleobiology Database. All are scientific reconstructions that are refined as research advances.

Geological periods · Learn

Why We Built It

We were fascinated by the question: where was my country during Pangea? There were existing tools, but none that felt simple, fast, and beautiful enough for casual curiosity. So we built one.

This is a side project made with love for science and history. It is completely free to use, with no sign-up required.

Technical Details

The map is built with Astro and D3.js. Paleogeographic coastline data is fetched live from the GPlates Web Service API. The dinosaur dataset is sourced from the Paleobiology Database.

Dinosaur Silhouettes

The dinosaur silhouettes are palaeoart from PhyloPic, an open library of life-form silhouettes. Each is credited below with its artist and license.

• Tyrannosaurus — Fred Wierum, CC BY 4.0, via PhyloPic
• Allosaurus — Jagged Fang Designs, CC0 1.0, via PhyloPic
• Spinosaurus — Alessio Ciaffi, CC BY 4.0, via PhyloPic
• Carnotaurus — artrociraptor, CC0 1.0, via PhyloPic
• Velociraptor — Itai Fein, CC0 1.0, via PhyloPic
• Archaeopteryx — Scott Hartman, CC0 1.0, via PhyloPic
• Diplodocus — Jagged Fang Designs, CC0 1.0, via PhyloPic
• Brachiosaurus — Michael P. Taylor, CC0 1.0, via PhyloPic
• Stegosaurus — Connor Ashbridge, CC BY 4.0, via PhyloPic
• Ankylosaurus — Itai Fein, CC0 1.0, via PhyloPic
• Triceratops — Jagged Fang Designs, CC0 1.0, via PhyloPic
• Parasaurolophus — Richard Rich, CC0 1.0, via PhyloPic
• Pachycephalosaurus — Emily Willoughby, CC BY-SA 3.0, via PhyloPic
• Iguanodon — Tasman Dixon, CC0 1.0, via PhyloPic
• Edmontosaurus — Ivan Iofrida, CC BY 4.0, via PhyloPic

Contact

Questions, feedback, or corrections? We'd love to hear from you. Reach out at [email protected].