Family research · Hub · Phase 7 of the world atlas

Flags of the Caucasus

Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan — three countries wedged between the Black Sea and the Caspian, each with a real medieval kingdom or dynasty behind it, and each conquered, partitioned, and reborn on a strikingly similar schedule: Mongol, then Ottoman-versus-Persian, then Russian, then briefly free, then Soviet, then free again.

This is Phase 7 of the atlas — the first hub outside Europe. Dedicated country pages for all three are now live; drag the map's slider below to see a thousand years of the region change hands, one era at a time.

The three lineages

c. 600 BCE–present Georgia The Bagrationi kingdom, division between Ottoman and Persian spheres, Russian and Soviet rule, the five-cross flag of 2004. c. 321 BCE–present Armenia The Bagratid kingdom of Ani, centuries split between empires, the 1918 tricolor, still flying today. c. 861–present Azerbaijan The long-lived Shirvanshahs, Safavid and Russian rule, the Muslim world's first secular republic in 1918.

A thousand years, one map

A real, traced map — actual coastlines on the Black Sea and the Caspian (the world's largest lake, though it's shown here as water like any sea), actual borders, not schematic shapes. Faint gray context lines trace the edges of Turkey, Iran, and Russia, the three neighbors that have fought over or absorbed this region again and again. Drag the slider or press play; each snapshot simplifies a messier reality into the dominant power of the moment.

Borders here are data, not decoration. A line between two regions only draws solid when they were actually governed separately. When they weren't — all three under a single Russian or Soviet administration, say — the line dissolves and their names merge into whoever actually ruled them all. Colors blend between eras instead of jump-cutting.

1000

Independent medieval kingdoms

Real traced borders and coastlines (simplified). Azerbaijan's Nakhchivan exclave — separated from the rest of the country by Armenian territory since the 1920s — is drawn and colored as part of Azerbaijan throughout, since the two have shared a ruler in every era on this map.

Try: drag from 1250 to 1828 and watch all three regions repeatedly fuse into one merged label — Ilkhanate, then briefly separate, then Russian Empire — each time a single outside power ruled the whole region at once. Then jump to 1918: all three snap apart into distinct colors for the only stretch before 1991 when Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan were each fully sovereign. Watch 1922 fuse them again under the Transcaucasian SFSR, then 1936 split them back into three separate, distinctly colored Soviet republics without any of them leaving Soviet rule at all.

The same story, as a timeline

Maps are bad at showing when; timelines are bad at showing where. This uses real transition years instead of the nine arbitrary snapshots above — one horizontal band per country, colored the same way as the map, so you can trace exactly how long each era actually lasted and compare all three directly.

The same story, nine frames — only the change lights up

Every region keeps its true color, but anything unchanged from the previous frame fades to low opacity; only the region(s) that actually changed hands stay bold with a solid outline. A caption under each frame spells out exactly what flipped. No slider to operate — scan left to right, top to bottom, and watch the map redraw itself like a flipbook.

About this atlas

This started as a family history project: tracing the flags that flew over the lands our ancestors came from, close enough to paint accurately — correct colors, correct proportions, correct dates. The Balkans came first; the Caucasus is the atlas's first step outside Europe, chosen because the three countries' histories run on such a similar clock that none of them really makes sense without the other two.

Colors are close historical approximations; pre-19th-century swatches especially are informed reconstructions, not official specifications, and are labeled as such throughout. The Soviet-era republics all flew red flags in reality — the three different reddish shades used on this map are a map-reading convenience, not a claim about the real vexillology, and the flag chips above the story text show the real, mostly-red designs. The regional map simplifies a millennium of messy, overlapping, disputed control into nine snapshots — useful for orientation, not a substitute for the detail each country's own future page will carry.

More of the atlas

This hub is one region in a larger set. See the other phases here:

Flags Atlas indexSearch every country and hub Former Yugoslavia hubNine countries, nine centuries Habsburg Lands hubSeven countries, four centuries German Lands hubGermany's own east-west split