Everything that has been dated or claimed for the subcontinent, from the formation of the Earth to today. Evidence-based history and traditional reckonings run side by side, each marked for what it rests on. In the Streams view each power is one shape whose height is the territory it held, and the lines between shapes show conquest, succession and splits. The map under the chart shows where each power ruled in the year you are looking at, with the campaigns, migrations and journeys of that moment drawn as arrows. Use the era strip to jump between periods. Pinch, or hold Ctrl (Cmd on a Mac) and scroll, to zoom. Drag or swipe sideways to move through time. Tap a shape, a line or a lifeline for its story and sources, or tap empty space to see everything happening in that year. A printable poster of the whole chart is also available.
Height is the square root of territory on one fixed scale, so a shape twice as tall held about four times the land. Streams are stacked roughly north-west at the top to the far south at the bottom. Lines between shapes are conquests (solid), successions, splits (dashed) and vassalage (dotted); tap one for the reason. All territory figures are estimates; each polity, person, event and transition now carries a short note with a source link, and a line saying whether it was checked, corrected or is still unverified.
Millennia: eras and great empires. Centuries: regional kingdoms. Decades: dynasty phases, rulers and their reigns. Years: a year-by-year chronicle, mostly from the 16th century on, where sources allow it.
Before about 10,000 BCE the scale turns logarithmic, so the Earth's 4.5 billion years and the Puranic yugas fit on the same chart as Akbar's reign. Switch on Even scale to keep every century the same width.
Traditional chronologies are shown in full and labelled as such. Where a date is contested, every major proposal is listed with who made it, rather than one being chosen silently.
The poster edition lays the whole chart on one designed sheet, 4000 × 2360 px, which prints well at 100 × 59 cm. Use your browser's print dialog to save it as a PDF.