In the old Chronas frontend, the map displayed period-accurate empire and polity names based on the selected year. For example, when viewing
the year 1880, the territories of the Ottoman Empire were labeled as "Ottoman Empire", the Russian Empire as "Russia", etc. — reflecting the
geopolitical reality of that time.
In the new frontend (new.chronas.org), the territory colors still correctly represent the historical empires, but the labels now show
modern-day country names (e.g. "Turkiye", "Syria", "Jordan", "Libya" instead of "Ottoman Empire"). This makes the map less useful for
understanding historical geopolitics at a glance.
I couldn't find a setting to toggle this behavior.
Screenshots
Old frontend (chronas.org, year 1880) — territories are labeled with their contemporary empire names:
New frontend (new.chronas.org, year 1880) — same territories are labeled with modern country names:
Proposed solution
Add a setting (e.g. a toggle in the settings panel or a map layer option) that lets users choose between:
- Modern names (current behavior): display present-day country names
- Historical names (old behavior): display period-accurate polity/empire names based on the selected year
Ideally, historical names would be the default, since that is more consistent with the purpose of a historical atlas and matches the colored
empire boundaries already shown on the map.
P.S.: Looking more closely at the new frontend, the historical empire names are actually present — e.g. "Ottoman Empire" is visible in small text under Egypt in the second screenshot. However, they are displayed in a much smaller, less prominent style compared to the modern country names, which dominate the map visually. So the issue is really about visual hierarchy/priority: modern country names are given more
prominence than the historical empire names, when arguably it should be the other way around (or at least configurable). An alternative to a full toggle could be adjusting the styling so that empire names are more prominent than individual modern country labels when viewing historical periods.
In the old Chronas frontend, the map displayed period-accurate empire and polity names based on the selected year. For example, when viewing
the year 1880, the territories of the Ottoman Empire were labeled as "Ottoman Empire", the Russian Empire as "Russia", etc. — reflecting the
geopolitical reality of that time.
In the new frontend (
new.chronas.org), the territory colors still correctly represent the historical empires, but the labels now showmodern-day country names (e.g. "Turkiye", "Syria", "Jordan", "Libya" instead of "Ottoman Empire"). This makes the map less useful for
understanding historical geopolitics at a glance.
I couldn't find a setting to toggle this behavior.
Screenshots
Old frontend (
chronas.org, year 1880) — territories are labeled with their contemporary empire names:New frontend (
new.chronas.org, year 1880) — same territories are labeled with modern country names:Proposed solution
Add a setting (e.g. a toggle in the settings panel or a map layer option) that lets users choose between:
Ideally, historical names would be the default, since that is more consistent with the purpose of a historical atlas and matches the colored
empire boundaries already shown on the map.
P.S.: Looking more closely at the new frontend, the historical empire names are actually present — e.g. "Ottoman Empire" is visible in small text under Egypt in the second screenshot. However, they are displayed in a much smaller, less prominent style compared to the modern country names, which dominate the map visually. So the issue is really about visual hierarchy/priority: modern country names are given more
prominence than the historical empire names, when arguably it should be the other way around (or at least configurable). An alternative to a full toggle could be adjusting the styling so that empire names are more prominent than individual modern country labels when viewing historical periods.