Coverage
What this collection covers, and what it does not
Every year from AD 1 to 2026 can be opened and holds at least three source-attributed records from at least two regions. That is a floor, not a full account: most of what happened in any year is not here.
- 6,529 records in this release
- 2,026 / 2,026 years that meet the floor
- 854 sources (editions, volumes and single documents)
- 420 records with no region assigned: the collection has not fixed where the act took place
Records by century and region
Each number is how many records the collection places in that century and region. An empty cell means nothing has been collected there yet, not that nothing happened.
| Century | Northern Africa | Western Africa | Europe | Mediterranean | Western Asia | Central Asia | South Asia | East Asia | Southeast Asia | Americas | Oceania | No region assigned | All |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AD 1–100 | 171 | 26 | 4 | 4 | 123 | 1 | 6 | 335 | |||||
| AD 101–200 | 171 | 1 | 136 | 28 | 336 | ||||||||
| AD 201–300 | 113 | 25 | 7 | 182 | 1 | 59 | 387 | ||||||
| AD 301–400 | 33 | 81 | 9 | 275 | 4 | 52 | 454 | ||||||
| AD 401–500 | 10 | 79 | 1 | 14 | 193 | 22 | 319 | ||||||
| AD 501–600 | 58 | 38 | 4 | 200 | 300 | ||||||||
| AD 601–700 | 21 | 21 | 66 | 8 | 1 | 197 | 1 | 1 | 316 | ||||
| AD 701–800 | 1 | 59 | 47 | 6 | 189 | 1 | 11 | 314 | |||||
| AD 801–900 | 120 | 14 | 166 | 10 | 310 | ||||||||
| AD 901–1000 | 1 | 94 | 5 | 199 | 4 | 303 | |||||||
| AD 1001–1100 | 100 | 204 | 1 | 305 | |||||||||
| AD 1101–1200 | 101 | 1 | 197 | 7 | 306 | ||||||||
| AD 1201–1300 | 94 | 10 | 1 | 176 | 21 | 302 | |||||||
| AD 1301–1400 | 100 | 174 | 30 | 304 | |||||||||
| AD 1401–1500 | 100 | 128 | 79 | 307 | |||||||||
| AD 1501–1600 | 101 | 146 | 68 | 315 | |||||||||
| AD 1601–1700 | 108 | 7 | 87 | 91 | 10 | 303 | |||||||
| AD 1701–1800 | 112 | 2 | 69 | 4 | 110 | 7 | 304 | ||||||
| AD 1801–1900 | 5 | 92 | 21 | 2 | 15 | 36 | 30 | 98 | 8 | 307 | |||
| AD 1901–2000 | 16 | 54 | 38 | 2 | 13 | 60 | 15 | 88 | 17 | 303 | |||
| AD 2001–2026 | 4 | 1 | 18 | 1 | 7 | 2 | 5 | 5 | 10 | 16 | 9 | 78 |
Read the coverage correctly
- It is thin.
- 1,714 years hold 3 records
- 239 years hold 4 records
- 42 years hold 5 records
- 23 years hold 6 records
- 4 years hold 7 records
- 2 years hold 8 records
- 2 years hold 9 records
- It is uneven. The largest regions are East Asia 47%, Europe 23%, Northern Africa 9%. No record is assigned to Eastern Africa, Central Africa, Southern Africa, Polar regions, Transregional. This reflects which year-by-year sources could be read and displayed, not where history happened.
- It leans on a few sources. The most-used are Zizhi tongjian (1,602); Song shi (History of Song), basic annals (629); Ming shi (History of Ming), basic annals (525); Dutch-Asiatic Shipping (487); NCEI/WDS Global Significant Earthquake Database (442). Records from one chronicle are that chronicle’s view, not independent confirmation of each other.
- Some years lean on an uncertain placement. In 19 years the floor of three events and two regions is met only by counting a record whose year is one of two candidates (the Annals of Ulster records of AD 1193–1222, each marked).
- Records are attributed. “A source records” is what each one claims. A search that finds nothing cannot establish that nothing happened.
- AD 2026 is unfinished. Its records were observed up to 8 November 2026, 01:12 Japan time.
- Regions are overlapping discovery labels, not borders. Centuries are navigation, not historical eras.