Terms of use
CHRONIA is one person’s atlas of the world’s borders. These are the terms on which you are welcome to use it, written to be read.
1The short version
Explore the atlas as much as you like, share what you find, and tell me when the map is wrong. Don’t attack the atlas, flood it with automated requests, or send reports that aren’t meant to help. It is free, it is kept up when I have time, and it comes with no guarantees: it is a work of research and judgement, not a legal or official record of any border.
2Who these terms are between
These terms are an agreement between Noah Darwin Lee (“I” or “me”), who runs CHRONIA at chroniaatlas.com and every page under it (the “atlas”), and you, the person using it. There is no company involved. You can reach me at noahlee519@gmail.com.
By using the atlas you accept these terms. If you don’t accept them, please don’t use it; nothing here requires an account, and nothing costs anything, so leaving costs you nothing either.
3What you may do
You may explore the atlas at any date, as often as you like; link to any view of it; use it in teaching, study, writing, and work; take screenshots and quote it, with credit to CHRONIA; and open its maps in UCHRONIA to redraw them. You need no permission for any of that, and you will never be asked to pay for it.
4What you agree not to do
The atlas itself. Don’t try to break into the atlas or the database behind it, reach anyone else’s account or reports, or overload it with automated requests, such as scraping every date or every card, that would cost me money or spoil it for others. Ordinary use, even heavy ordinary use, is fine.
Reports. Send reports to help correct the map. Reports that are abusive, hateful, sexual, or spam, or that use more than one account to get around the daily limit, are not allowed, and I may close the account that sent them.
Your account. Sign in only with a Google account that is yours, and only if you are 13 or older.
5What the map is
A work of judgement. Borders in the past were often vague, disputed, or unknown, and the atlas has to draw a line anyway. Every border, date, name, capital, and city on it is a judgement from its sources, and some will be wrong or simplified. Don’t rely on the atlas as an official, legal, or authoritative statement of any border, claim, or sovereignty, past or present, and don’t take a border’s presence or absence as a position on any dispute.
The notes. The short notes on the cards are written by AI models, DeepSeek or else Anthropic’s Claude, from what the atlas shows. They can be wrong, and they can say something the map does not. They are a starting point, not a source; the Wikipedia article on the card is a better one.
6Reporting an error
A report is a suggestion for the map. I read each one and decide what to change; I may agree, disagree, reply, or close it without a change, and I may use what you tell me to correct the atlas without credit or payment. By sending a report, you give me permission to do that.
7Who owns what
The atlas. CHRONIA’s design, code, and writing are mine, unless they are credited to someone else. You may quote and link to them with credit, but you may not copy the atlas wholesale and present it as your own.
Its sources. The map is drawn from the work of others: historical-basemaps, Cliopatria, CShapes, Natural Earth, and many more, each under its own licence, with Wikipedia’s text and Wikimedia’s pictures on the cards. Where a source’s licence lets you reuse its data, it does here too. All credits and licences are listed with the atlas’s code.
If you think something here is yours. If you believe something in the atlas infringes your copyright, write to me with what it is and where it appears, and I will look into it promptly and take it down if you are right.
8No guarantees
The atlas is provided “as is” and “as available”, without any warranty of any kind, whether express or implied, including any warranty that it is accurate, complete, fit for a particular purpose, or free of errors. It may be wrong, it may be down, and a browser update may break something that worked yesterday. I fix what I notice and what people report, on no fixed schedule.
Your settings are kept only in your browser and can disappear if you clear your browser data or switch devices.
9Limits on liability
To the fullest extent the law allows, I am not liable for any loss or damage, direct or indirect, arising from your use of the atlas or your inability to use it. Nothing in these terms limits liability that cannot lawfully be limited, and some places give you rights that no page like this one can take away. Where these terms and those rights conflict, your rights prevail.
10Other people’s sites
The atlas links to Wikipedia, to its sources, to UCHRONIA, and to Ko-fi. Those sites run under their own terms and policies, and I am not responsible for what is on them.
11Which law applies
These terms, and any dispute arising out of them or out of your use of the atlas, are governed by the law of the State of New York, United States, without regard to its rules on choosing another jurisdiction’s law. Any such dispute is to be brought in the state or federal courts located in New York. If the law where you live gives you the right to bring a claim in your own courts, that right stands. Nothing in these terms requires arbitration or prevents you from joining a class action.
12Changes and endings
I may change the atlas, redraw any part of it, change or retire the notes or the reports, or take it down at any time. If these terms change, this page changes and the date at the top moves. Continuing to use the atlas after that means you accept the new version.
13The rest
These terms and the privacy policy are the whole agreement between us about the atlas. If any part of them turns out to be unenforceable, the rest still stands. If I don’t enforce a term right away, I haven’t given it up.