Animated Map Shows How the Five Major Religions Spread Across the World (3000 BC — 2000 AD)

Hin­duism, Judaism, Bud­dhism, Chris­tian­i­ty, Islam.… Claims to ancient ori­gin and ulti­mate author­i­ty notwith­stand­ing, the world’s five major reli­gions are all of recent vin­tage com­pared to the cou­ple hun­dred thou­sand years or more of human exis­tence on the plan­et. Dur­ing most of our pre­his­to­ry, reli­gious beliefs and prac­tices were large­ly local­ized, con­fined to the ter­ri­to­r­i­al or trib­al bound­aries of indi­vid­ual groups.

For peo­ple groups in the British Isles a thou­sand years ago, for exam­ple, the Lev­ant may as well have been anoth­er plan­et. How is it that Britain became a few hun­dred years lat­er one of the most zeal­ous­ly glob­al evan­ge­liz­ers of a reli­gion from Pales­tine? How is it that an Indi­an sect, Bud­dhism, which sup­pos­ed­ly began with one man some­time in the 5th Cen­tu­ry B.C.E., became the dom­i­nant reli­gion in all of Asia just a few hun­dred years lat­er?

Answer­ing such ques­tions in detail is the busi­ness of pro­fes­sion­al his­to­ri­ans. But we know the broad out­lines: the world’s major reli­gions spread through impe­r­i­al con­quest and forced con­ver­sion; through cul­tur­al exchange of ideas and the adap­ta­tion of far-off beliefs to local cus­toms, prac­tices, and rit­u­als; through migrant and dias­po­ra com­mu­ni­ties mov­ing across the globe. We know reli­gions trav­eled back and forth through trade routes over land and sea and were trans­mit­ted by the painstak­ing trans­la­tion and copy­ing by hand of dense, lengthy scrip­tures.

All of these move­ments are also the move­ments of the mod­ern glob­al­ized world, a con­struct that began tak­ing shape a few thou­sand years ago. The spread of the “Big 5” reli­gions cor­re­sponds with the shift­ing of mass­es of humans around the globe as they formed the inter­con­nec­tions that now bind us all tight­ly togeth­er, whether we like it or not.

In the ani­mat­ed map above from Busi­ness Insid­er, you can watch the move­ment of these five faiths over the course of 5,000 years and see in the span of a lit­tle over two min­utes how the mod­ern world took shape. And you might find your­self won­der­ing: what will such a map look like in anoth­er 5,000 years? Or in 500? Will these glob­al reli­gions all meld into one? Will they with­er away? Will they splin­ter into thou­sands? Our spec­u­la­tions reveal much about what we think will hap­pen to human­i­ty in the future.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

5‑Minute Ani­ma­tion Maps 2,600 Years of West­ern Cul­tur­al His­to­ry

70,000+ Reli­gious Texts Dig­i­tized by Prince­ton The­o­log­i­cal Sem­i­nary, Let­ting You Immerse Your­self in the Curi­ous Works of Great World Reli­gions

Har­vard Launch­es a Free Online Course to Pro­mote Reli­gious Tol­er­ance & Under­stand­ing

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness