Historical tutorial

Animate borders changing across years

Plays a historical empire or state's borders forward through time, morphing one year's shape into the next and stamping the year on screen as it goes. It is the action for history explainers — the rise of Rome, Napoleon's Europe, the Ottoman retreat — where the CHANGE is the story.

How to

1. Add the action and pick the entity in the New historical window; each one shows how many snapshots it will play.
2. Check the Duration the window seeds from that snapshot count before you click Create.
3. Click Edit timelapse style for the line and fill of the moving border.
4. Put a Fly to before it, framed wide enough to hold the entity at its largest extent.
5. Add a Label action for a title on screen while the years run.

See also

• Border — Border shows one fixed outline of a place as it stands today, when nothing needs to change over time.
• Land — Land fills a modern country's area; Historical fills a historical entity's area at every year it existed.

Last checked 2026-09-03