A changing empire.
A lasting story.
Trace the growth and contraction of the ancient Assyrian state against familiar geography. Each stage distinguishes broad territorial control, indirect relationships and the limits of its geographic reconstruction.
How to read this map Solid and patterned regions are schematic interpretations, not reconstructed provincial borders. Each chapter explains their limits and links to evidence and related articles. Modern borders are for orientation.
Evidence & methodOne step = one dated sketch. The intervals contain different numbers of years; boundaries are not interpolated.
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City markers identify places, not the full extent of Assyrian settlement. Select a city in the list for context.
An empire ends. A people's story continues.
This first map follows an ancient state. Its territory is not a map of modern Assyrian identity, present-day land claims or every place Assyrians have lived. Explore the archive's later histories, languages and living communities.
Continue through the ages → Read the biblical accounts →Know what the map can tell you.
These original, hand-drawn coordinate sketches interpret the regional histories cited below. They have not been digitised from an authoritative historical atlas, and have not received specialist cartographic review. Lines are deliberately generalised; they cannot locate a village inside or outside a historical province.
The solid layer shows a schematic core of relatively sustained control, while hatching groups relationships such as vassalage, tribute, campaigns and disputed regions. Each chapter explains its classification and whether the geographic reconstruction is broad, highly generalised or unmapped. These are interpretive limitations, not quantified probabilities. At 612 and 609 BCE, uncertain surviving boundaries are left unmapped. The city markers provide context instead.
Present-day coastlines and borders use Natural Earth at 1:110 million scale; the selected rivers use its 1:50 million data. They are an orientation aid: ancient rivers and shorelines could differ. Natural Earth's boundary conventions do not resolve present-day disputes. Label positions are editorial. The map uses a simple regional equirectangular projection.
There are no external tile services, map accounts or API keys. The JavaScript, geographical files, dated sketches and source notes are served by this repository. Download them, keep the attribution and improve the evidence.
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Historical sketches & source notes JSON / CC BY 4.0Land & coastlines GeoJSON / public domainModern countries GeoJSON / public domainRivers GeoJSON / public domainAttribution & methodology Preservation notesMade with Natural Earth. Tom Patterson, Nathaniel Vaughn Kelso and contributors. Original atlas text and historical sketches: Assyria | The Living Archive, CC BY 4.0. Cited scholarship retains its own rights.
Read all eleven chapters as text
- 1350 BCE - From the Assyrian heartland
Under Ashur-uballit I, Assyria recovered independence and extended its power north from Ashur towards Nineveh and Arbela. This small northern Mesopotamian core became the foundation for later expansion.
A broad heartland sketch, not the boundary of a single campaign. The city-state and its trading networks have a much earlier history.
Boundary interpretation: The outline groups the Assur-Nineveh-Arbela heartland without tracing district limits in 1350 BCE.
Read more: Ancient Assyria, Ashur: city, sanctuary and crossroads, Running the Neo-Assyrian empire
- 1250 BCE - Across northern Mesopotamia
Successors of Ashur-uballit pushed Assyrian control west through former Mitannian lands towards the Euphrates. The map shows the northern territorial state before Tukulti-Ninurta I's later conquest of Babylon.
The western and mountain frontiers are generalised. Later victories in Babylonia are not projected backwards into this snapshot.
Boundary interpretation: The wider northern outline combines historical growth over a long period. Individual conquest dates differ from the illustrative year.
Read more: Ancient Assyria, Running the Neo-Assyrian empire
- 1050 BCE - A smaller territorial state
Aramaean expansion and pressure on Assyrian centres reduced Assyria's hold over Upper Mesopotamia towards the end of the second millennium BCE. The surviving heartland remained a base for recovery.
The smaller shape is a schematic retreat to the core; the exact frontier in 1050 BCE is not securely reconstructed here.
Boundary interpretation: Evidence does not justify an exact frontier for 1050 BCE; the reduced outline represents the continuing political heartland only.
Read more: Ancient Assyria, Ashur: city, sanctuary and crossroads, After the empire: Assyria's changing regions
- 859 BCE - Recovery under Ashurnasirpal II
Assyria recovered much of its earlier northern territory under Ashurnasirpal II. Kalhu, now Nimrud, became a royal capital. Campaigns and tribute reached beyond the area of sustained territorial control.
The solid shape represents a broad territorial nucleus. A campaign to the Mediterranean does not make the whole Levant an Assyrian province.
Boundary interpretation: The outline generalises ninth-century recovery and should not be used to infer the borders of every campaign.
Read more: Ashurnasirpal II: rebuilding Kalhu, Nimrud, ancient Kalhu, Reading Assyrian palace art
- 824 BCE - Looking west under Shalmaneser III
Shalmaneser III repeatedly campaigned beyond the Euphrates. Assyria combined a northern Mesopotamian territorial base with tribute and pressure on western kingdoms. The patterned zone represents a broad sphere of intervention and tributary relationships.
Royal inscriptions magnify conquest. The patterned zone is not a claim that every western kingdom was simultaneously annexed or continuously obedient.
Boundary interpretation: Repeated campaigns did not create one fixed western border; the hatched west is a deliberately broad envelope.
Read more: Shalmaneser III and the western campaigns, Running the Neo-Assyrian empire, Ancient Assyria
- 727 BCE - A wider empire under Tiglath-pileser III
Western kingdoms were increasingly converted into provinces. Damascus was annexed in 732 BCE, alongside further changes in the northern kingdom of Israel. Assyrian power also extended into Babylonia, where kingship and local institutions require separate treatment.
Babylonia is patterned to distinguish its political relationship from straightforward provincial annexation. The outlines combine regional changes over a reign.
Boundary interpretation: This sketch merges changing western provinces and dependent kingdoms near the end of a reign; it does not identify exact administrative lines.
Read more: Tiglath-pileser III: empire and provinces, Running the Neo-Assyrian empire, Deportation and resettlement in Assyria, Tiglath Pileser, Ahaz and the fall of Damascus
- 705 BCE - Empire and a new royal city
Sargon II faced rebellions and consolidated Assyrian power across the west and east. His new capital, Dur-Sharrukin, expressed imperial ambition. Babylonia remained politically distinctive rather than becoming one uniform block of Assyrian provinces.
The outline is a regional sketch at the end of the reign, not a reconstruction of every province, tributary or disputed mountain district.
Boundary interpretation: The outline compresses many campaigns and administrative changes into an end-of-reign teaching image.
Read more: Sargon II: king, campaigns and a new capital, Dur-Sharrukin and Khorsabad, Running the Neo-Assyrian empire, Sargon and the sign against Egypt and Cush
- 671 BCE - An empire reaching the Nile
Esarhaddon's successful invasion of Egypt in 671 BCE extended Assyrian intervention into the Nile Delta and the region of Memphis. This was a major imperial reach, maintained through local rulers and repeated military action.
Only Lower Egypt is shaded here. Short-lived conquest and indirect rule should not be read as permanent provincial control over all Egypt or Kush.
Boundary interpretation: The Nile Delta shading is deliberately not an Egyptian provincial boundary. It indicates military reach and unstable indirect arrangements.
Read more: Esarhaddon: succession and Egypt, Running the Neo-Assyrian empire, Esar Haddon and the death of Sennacherib, Sennacherib: Nineveh and Judah
- 650 BCE - Egypt moves beyond Assyrian control
Under the Saite dynasty, Egypt moved from Assyrian vassalage to independence. Psamtik I had brought the south under his authority by 656 BCE. Assyria still held a large Asian empire, but its political relationships were neither uniform nor stable.
Egypt is removed from the overlay. Babylonia remains patterned: control there was contested, including the rebellion of 652-648 BCE.
Boundary interpretation: The snapshot records Assyria's changed reach after Egypt's increasing independence, not precise district control in 650 BCE.
Read more: Ashurbanipal: king and the tablet collections, Running the Neo-Assyrian empire, Deportation and resettlement in Assyria
- 612 BCE - Nineveh falls; resistance continues
Ashur fell to the Medes in 614 BCE. In 612 BCE, the Medes and Babylonians besieged and sacked Nineveh. Surviving Assyrian forces gathered at Harran under Ashur-uballit II.
No territorial polygon is drawn: the boundaries of surviving Assyrian control are not established here. The highlighted point marks the rallying city, not a new empire.
Boundary interpretation: After Nineveh's capture, surviving forces and local allegiances cannot be converted responsibly into a single territorial outline.
Read more: The fall of Nineveh and the end of Assyrian imperial rule, Nineveh and the library of Ashurbanipal, After the empire: Assyria's changing regions, Nahum and the oracle concerning Nineveh
- 609 BCE - The imperial chapter closes
Harran fell in 610/609 BCE. Assyrian and Egyptian forces attempted to recover it, but their siege failed. This marks the end of this map's account of the ancient imperial state. Assyrian communities and cultural histories continue beyond its borders and dates.
An empty overlay means no imperial territory is mapped. It does not mean the land was empty, or that Assyrian people disappeared. See the wider archive for later histories.
Boundary interpretation: The remaining Assyrian military resistance at Harran does not establish a defensible region of direct rule to shade.
Read more: The fall of Nineveh and the end of Assyrian imperial rule, After the empire: Assyria's changing regions, Ancient Assyria
Sources and interpretation.
These sources support the chronology and documented political relationships, not exact border coordinates. Each chapter identifies how its sources were used. The boundary sketches are the project's interpretation, not geospatial datasets supplied or endorsed by those authors; royal inscriptions preserve royal claims, not automatically their outcomes.
- Assyria, 1365-609 B.C.
Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Middle Assyrian recovery, territorial contraction and ninth-century recovery. Chronologies vary between publications.
- Countries and peoples
Assyrian Empire Builders, University College London / ORACC. The Assur-Nineveh-Arbela heartland and the different relationships between Assyria and surrounding states.
- Tiglath-pileser III, king of Assyria (744-727 BC)
Karen Radner, Assyrian Empire Builders, University College London / ORACC. Western annexations, including Damascus in 732 BCE; growth towards the Persian Gulf.
- Sargon II, king of Assyria (721-705 BC)
Karen Radner, Assyrian Empire Builders, University College London / ORACC. Rebellion, campaigning and consolidation. Accession conventions differ; the snapshot is at the end of the reign.
- Babylon and the cities and tribes of Southern Mesopotamia
Chaitanya Kanchan and Karen Radner, Assyrian Empire Builders, University College London / ORACC. Babylonia was not simply annexed wholesale as an Assyrian province. Assyrian kingship and control there took different forms.
- Egyptian in hieroglyphic script
Nimrud: Materialities of Assyrian Knowledge Production / ORACC. Esarhaddon's successful campaign against Egypt in 671 BCE.
- Egypt in the Late Period (ca. 664-332 B.C.)
Department of Egyptian Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Egypt's transition from Assyrian vassal to independent ally; Psamtik I controlled the south by 656 BCE.
- Babylonian Chronicle, British Museum 1896,0409.6 (BM 21901)
The British Museum, object 1896,0409.6. Original tablet catalogue for events between 616 and 609 BCE, including Nineveh and Harran; the tablet is a later copy recording events, not a historical boundary dataset.
- Shalmaneser III: royal inscriptions (Q004636)
Royal Inscriptions of Assyria online / ORACC. Royal claims to campaigns and dominion in the west. Such claims are political texts and do not establish uniform provincial borders.
- Representing Assyrian interests in the vassal states
Assyrian Empire Builders, University College London / ORACC. Explains the difference between annexed provinces, dependent kings, tribute and political relations.
- Israel, the House of Omri
Assyrian Empire Builders, University College London / ORACC. Describes northern Israelite provincial annexations, vassal kingship and Damascus in 732 BCE; do not infer exact boundaries from this essay.