Atlas — the world canvas
Earth · Nature · Explore · All time · 12 of 242 located marks in focus · pattern: The world before witnesses · editorial corpus · no live source connected
Places in the order the corpus dates them. The line marks that order — it is not a route, and no path between these places is recorded.
3005 BCE
Past → now. Now is 2026, the corpus’s latest recorded state · 1145 objects · 280 located (1 withheld) · 865 unlocated
Now · 2026Pattern · on the world
Close ✕The world before witnesses
Rocks that record life before anything could see it — where on Earth is the evidence kept?
Places in the order the corpus dates them. · 12
- 1 Burgess Shale, Yoho National Park · 1909
- 2 Ediacara Hills, Flinders Ranges · 1946
- 3 Bottaccione Gorge, Gubbio · 1980
- 4 Chengjiang fossil site, Yunnan · 1984
- 5 Chicxulub impact crater, Yucatán · 1991
- 6 Isua supracrustal belt, southwest Greenland · 1999
- 7 Francevillian Basin, Gabon · 2010
- 8 Meishan GSSP, Changxing, Zhejiang · 2014
- 8 Siberian Traps large igneous province · 2014
- 9 Nuvvuagittuq greenstone belt, Nunavik · 2017
- 10 Dresser Formation, North Pole Dome, Pilbara · 2018
- 11 Fortune Head GSSP, Newfoundland · 2020
Places in the order the corpus dates them. The line marks that order — it is not a route, and no path between these places is recorded.
Read the story behind this pattern →865 objects have no place. See why, and how they relate instead — a coordinate they do not have would be a claim, not a kindness. The count is corpus-wide; no lens or window changes it.One more object is located but its mark is withheld: the coordinate is declared, not yet verified, and an unverified pin reads as a fact.
The places on Earth
242
- area
- — A region, drawn as one. The centre is not a location.
- point
- — A surveyed position. The mark is where the thing is.
- soft
- — A curatorial choice within a larger extent. The mark is near, not at.
- waypoint
- — A stop on a route. A single point does not describe it.
In focus · 12
- Bottaccione Gorge, Gubbio
- Burgess Shale, Yoho National Park
- Chengjiang fossil site, Yunnan
- Chicxulub impact crater, Yucatán
- Dresser Formation, North Pole Dome, Pilbara
- Ediacara Hills, Flinders Ranges
- Fortune Head GSSP, Newfoundland
- Francevillian Basin, Gabon
- Isua supracrustal belt, southwest Greenland
- Meishan GSSP, Changxing, Zhejiang
- Nuvvuagittuq greenstone belt, Nunavik
- Siberian Traps large igneous province
Outside the current lens or window · 230
- Xi'an Stele (Jingjiao / 'Nestorian' Stele)
- The Luzon Strait
- The Red Sea cable corridor
- The Strait of Malacca
- Ahmedabad
- Aksum
- Alexandria
- Antioch on the Orontes
- Berlin
- Birmingham
- Boston
- Brasília
- Bukhara
- Canberra
- Canton (historical) — modern Guangzhou
- Carthage
- Chang'an
- Chicago
- Constantinople
- Córdoba
- Curitiba
- Dunhuang
- Goa
- Havana
- Istanbul
- Jakarta
- Jerusalem (Old City)
- Kashgar
- Lagos
- Lisbon
- Liverpool
- Londinium
- London
- Malacca (Melaka)
- Manaus
- Manchester
- Manila
- Marka (Merca), Somalia
- Marseille
- Mecca (Makkah)
- Medellín
- Merv
- Moscow
- New Orleans
- New York City
- Nusantara
- Paris
- Potosí
- Rio de Janeiro
- Rome
- Samarkand
- Seville
- Shanghai
- Singapore
- Songdo
- Tenochtitlan
- Tokyo
- Vladivostok
- Xi'an
- Amboseli–Tsavo–Kilimanjaro dispersal corridor
- Kavango–Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA)
- Gulf Stream
- Humboldt (Peru–Chile) Current
- Kuroshio
- Berlin Marathon
- Boston Marathon
- Chicago Marathon
- London Marathon
- New York City Marathon
- Tokyo Marathon
- AlphaFold Protein Structure Database
- Lagos Blue Line
- Metrocable Line K, Medellín
- Basque (Euskara)
- Malagasy
- Australian Institute of Marine Science
- Arctic Council
- Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority
- ICOMOS (International Council on Monuments and Sites)
- INPE (Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais)
- International Telecommunication Union
- IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature)
- Jet Propulsion Laboratory
- UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization)
- World Health Organization
- Amboseli National Park
- Chobe National Park
- Etosha National Park
- Hwange National Park
- Kruger National Park
- Maasai Mara National Reserve
- Ngorongoro Conservation Area
- Okavango Delta
- Serengeti National Park
- El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO)
- Acapulco
- Cherbourg — transatlantic roadstead
- New York — Chelsea Piers (Piers 54 and 59)
- Queenstown (Cobh) — Roche's Point anchorage
- Southampton — White Star Dock (Berth 44)
- ITER
- Joint European Torus (JET)
- National Ignition Facility
- Anatolia
- Antarctica
- Arctic Ocean
- Assam
- Cuba
- Darjeeling
- The Fulda Gap
- Western Corridor and Grumeti Reserves
- Labrador Sea
- The Moluccas (Maluku Islands)
- Ngorongoro Conservation Area — Western Plains
- Northern Virginia data-centre corridor
- Ogliastra and the Nuoro highlands, Sardinia
- Okinawa
- The Pontic–Caspian steppe
- Southern Serengeti Short-Grass Plains
- South Georgia
- Taiwan
- Weddell Sea
- Yunnan
- Zambezi River
- The Mediterranean Sea (Mare Nostrum)
- Abu Simbel temples (Nubian Monuments from Abu Simbel to Philae)
- Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array
- Angkor
- Arabian Oryx Sanctuary, Oman (delisted 2007)
- Amazon Tall Tower Observatory (ATTO)
- Baikonur Cosmodrome
- Bayan Obo mining district
- Bhadla Solar Park
- The Bornholmer Strasse crossing
- Borobudur
- The Broad Street pump, Soho
- Burj Khalifa
- Launch Complex 41, Cape Canaveral
- Cape Canaveral Space Force Station
- Cape of Good Hope
- Challenger Deep
- Chartres Cathedral
- Checkpoint Charlie
- Chichen Itza
- Christ the Redeemer, Rio de Janeiro
- Colosseum (Flavian Amphitheatre), Rome
- Congo Square, New Orleans
- Costa Rica Thermal Dome
- Cromford Mill
- Denmark Strait Sill
- Drake Passage
- Dresden Elbe Valley (delisted 2009)
- DSS-43, Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex
- Durham Cathedral
- Eko Atlantic
- Enewetak Atoll
- Fairview Lawn Cemetery, Halifax
- Galápagos Islands
- Galapagos Rift
- Gare de l'Est, Paris
- Gemini North telescope, Maunakea
- Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex
- Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso
- Great Pyramid of Giza (Pyramid of Khufu)
- Great Wall of China
- Grytviken Whaling Station
- Guiana Space Centre, Kourou
- Hadrian's Wall
- Hagia Sophia, Constantinople / Istanbul
- Harland and Wolff shipyard, Queen's Island, Belfast
- Hattusa (Boğazkale)
- The Heart's Content cable station
- Home Insurance Building, Chicago
- The Iron Bridge, Coalbrookdale
- Kamioka Observatory, Mozumi mine
- John F. Kennedy Space Center
- Kilwa Kisiwani
- Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39A
- Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39B
- Landing Zone 1, Cape Canaveral
- Leptis Magna
- Lighthouse of Alexandria (the Pharos)
- LIGO Hanford Observatory
- LIGO Livingston Observatory
- Liverpool – Maritime Mercantile City (delisted 2021)
- Bahia de Loreto National Park
- Machu Picchu
- Madrid Deep Space Communications Complex
- Makoko
- Marathon and the Tumulus of the Athenians
- Mariana Trench
- Mausoleum at Halicarnassus
- McMurdo Station
- Meeting of the Waters (Encontro das Aguas)
- Mogao Caves
- Moss Landing battery storage complex
- Nevado Mismi
- Notre-Dame de Paris
- Ostia Antica
- Site of Palmyra
- The Pantheon, Rome
- Petra
- Philae temple complex (relocated to Agilkia Island)
- Pikialasorsuaq (the North Water Polynya)
- Point Conception
- Pont du Gard
- Porthcurno cable station
- Raja Ampat
- Basilica of Saint-Denis
- Salar de Atacama
- Simplon Tunnel
- Sirkeci Terminal, Istanbul
- Statue of Zeus at Olympia
- Stegra green steel plant, Boden
- Stonehenge
- Taj Mahal
- Tempelhof Airport
- Temple of Artemis at Ephesus (the Artemision)
- Timbuktu
- Titanic wreck site
- Treasury of Atreus, Mycenae
- Turfan oasis
- The Valentia Island cable station
- Venice and its Lagoon
- Paranal Observatory and the GRAVITY interferometer
- Vostok Station
- Waldschlösschen Bridge, Dresden
- White City Stadium
- Windsor Castle
- Yaroslavsky Station, Moscow
1145 objects · 37 Knowledge Journeys · 852 recorded dated events (3005 BCE–2026), 51 imprecisely dated, and 16 declared future targets (a target never moves Now) · 280 located (1 of them withheld pending verification), 865 unlocated
Every claim carries its evidence on the record it belongs to. Record-level revision history is not yet kept, and nothing here is generated or inferred — every figure above is counted from the records themselves. About Atlas →