Middle East & North Africa in 500 BC
500 BC is the Persian Empire at its height, on the eve of the Persian Wars. This map shows the 11 states and peoples the data has for Middle East & North Africa in that year.
Watch these borders move
Play the changes on an animated map, in your browser. Free, no account needed.
States and peoples in Middle East & North Africa in 500 BC
Largest first, by area on this map.
- Achaemenid Empire
- Kingdom of Kush
- Greek City-States
- Carthage
- Hadhramaut
- Sabaeans
- Macedonian Empire
- Etruscans
- Peloponnesian League
- Roman Kingdom
- Roman Republic
New on the map since 600 BC
Achaemenid Empire · Peloponnesian League · Roman Republic
Gone from the map by 400 BC
Roman Kingdom
Animated maps of this time
Middle East & North Africa in other years
Other regions in 500 BC
The outlines are coarse and follow the Cliopatria dataset: borders before modern surveys are estimates, and a blank area means the data has no state on record there, not that nobody lived there. A state that changed hands during the year can appear together with its successor.