The London Time Machine: Interactive Map Lets You Compare Modern London, to the London Shortly After the Great Fire of 1666

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From ESRI, the mak­er of geo­graph­ic soft­ware, comes the Lon­don Time Machine, an inter­ac­tive map that lets you see how Lon­don has changed over the past 330+ years, mov­ing from a city left in ruins by the Great Fire of 1666, to the sprawl­ing metrop­o­lis that it is today. Here’s how ESRI describes the map:

On Sun­day the 2nd of Sep­tem­ber 1666, the Great Fire of Lon­don began reduc­ing most of the cap­i­tal to ash­es. Among the dev­as­ta­tion and the loss­es were many maps of the city itself.

The Mor­gan Map of 1682 was the first to show the whole of the City of Lon­don after the fire. Pro­duced by William Mor­gan and his ded­i­cat­ed team of Sur­vey­ors and Car­tog­ra­phers it took 6 years to pro­duce, and dis­played a brighter per­spec­tive on city life for a pop­u­la­tion still mourn­ing their loved ones, pos­ses­sions, and homes.

But how much of this sym­bol­ised vision of a hoped-for ide­al city remains today? What now lies on the lush green fields to the south of the riv­er Thames? And how have the river’s banks been eat­en into by the insa­tiable appetite of urban devel­op­ment? Move the spy­glass to find out, and remem­ber to zoom-in to ful­ly inter­ro­gate fin­er details!

Enter the Lon­don Time Machine here.

via Hack­er News

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Prize-Win­ning Ani­ma­tion Lets You Fly Through 17th Cen­tu­ry Lon­don

The Old­est Known Footage of Lon­don (1890–1920) Fea­tures the City’s Great Land­marks

What Hap­pens When a Japan­ese Wood­block Artist Depicts Life in Lon­don in 1866, Despite Nev­er Hav­ing Set Foot There