Family research · Hub · Phase 19 of the world atlas

Flags of North America

Just three countries in this hub, but few regions carry more historical weight. Long before European contact, the continent held sophisticated, distinct civilizations: the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy in the northeast, whose consensus-based political structure is a documented influence on later democratic thought; the Maya civilization across southern Mexico and Central America, with its writing system, astronomy, and monumental cities; and the Aztec (Mexica) Empire, centered on the island capital of Tenochtitlan — by the early 1500s one of the largest cities on Earth. Hundreds of other distinct Indigenous, First Nations, and Native American peoples and nations occupied every part of the continent, each with its own language, governance, and territory.

European colonization arrived in overlapping waves and remade the continent by force. Hernán Cortés led the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire in 1519–1521, culminating in the fall of Tenochtitlan and three centuries of Spanish rule as New Spain. Further north, Britain and France competed for territory that became the United States and Canada, founding colonies, missions, and fur-trading networks along the Atlantic coast and the St. Lawrence River. Across the whole continent, this colonization produced real, well-documented displacement, violence, and demographic catastrophe for Indigenous peoples, through disease, warfare, forced removal, and the seizure of land, continuing well into each country's national period.

The three countries then diverged sharply. The United States declared independence in 1776, a founding that coexisted with chattel slavery for the nation's first 89 years until the Civil War (1861–65), fought centrally over slavery, before the country rose to global-power status in the 20th century. Canada took a far more gradual, largely peaceful path: New France passed to Britain in 1763, its colonies confederated in 1867, and full sovereignty arrived in stages, from the 1931 Statute of Westminster to the 1982 Constitution Act. Mexico won independence from Spain in 1821 after an 11-year war, endured a turbulent 19th century that included the 1846–48 Mexican-American War and the loss of roughly half its national territory to the United States, and was transformed again by the Mexican Revolution of 1910–1920.

The 3 countries

c. 1607 – present United States Thirteen British colonies whose 1776 Declaration of Independence coexisted with chattel slavery for the nation's first 89 years, a Civil War (1861–65) fought centrally over slavery, and a 20th-century rise to global superpower. c. 1534 – present Canada New France, ceded to Britain in 1763, confederated as a self-governing dominion in 1867, and reached full sovereignty through a gradual, largely peaceful process completed by the 1982 Constitution Act. 1325 – present Mexico The Aztec (Mexica) capital of Tenochtitlan fell to Hernán Cortés in 1521, opening three centuries as New Spain; independence came in 1821, the 1846–48 war with the United States cost Mexico roughly half its territory, and the Mexican Revolution followed in 1910–1920.

Nine points, one map

A real, traced map — actual coastlines, not schematic shapes — showing who actually governed the United States, Canada, and Mexico at nine points from before European contact to today. Central America, the Caribbean, and Greenland are shown faint, for geographic context only; they are not tracked. Drag the slider or press play.

Borders here are data, not decoration. The U.S.–Canada line only draws solid when the two were actually governed apart — it dissolves for one era only, before either was organized as a state in the modern sense. The U.S.–Mexico line never dissolves once: alone on this map, those two neighbors were never, at any point shown, under the same government. The map's own outline stays the same modern coastline throughout — only the fill color and label change — so growth and loss of real territory (Louisiana Purchase, the Mexican Cession) are carried in the story text below the map, not redrawn borders.

pre-1492

Indigenous nations

Real traced coastlines (Natural Earth 1:50m data, simplified). Alaska and Hawaii, the Canadian Arctic archipelago, and most small islands are omitted to keep the map at continental scale — a simplification, not a claim they weren't part of these countries' real histories. The U.S., Canada, and Mexico each keep their present-day outline across every era; only who governed that outline changes.

Try: start at the first frame and watch the U.S.–Canada border dissolve completely — the only time on this whole map that any line does. Step forward one frame and it snaps solid for good: New France and the Thirteen Colonies were always two different European crowns, never one government. Then watch the U.S.–Mexico line: it never dissolves, not once, across all nine frames — the clearest finding this map can show. Finally jump from 1821 to 1846–48: Mexico's color and label don't change at all, even though the country lost roughly half its claimed territory in those years — a reminder that this map tracks who governed a fixed modern outline, not the real, shifting borders in between.

About this hub

The map above is this atlas's real-coastline, era-slider visualization — the same mechanic used in the Former Yugoslavia and German-lands hubs — applied for the first time to North America. Nine real turning points, from before European contact to the present, trace who actually governed the United States, Canada, and Mexico, with a shared projection, a real dissolve-on-shared-ruler border rule, and each country's own flag lineage linked from the cards above.

Colors above are drawn from each country's current national flag. See each country's own page for its full historical color and paint-guide detail across every era.

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 Central America hubSeven countries, one federal union Caribbean hubIslands across empires and eras