About Imperialism Map

Explore sports history through territorial conquest. Every season. Every game.

Where This Idea Came From

Sports imperialism maps started on Reddit's college football community around 2017. The rules are simple: every team owns territory around their home venue. Win a game, take all of your opponent's land. Lose, and everything you built disappears. By season's end, the map tells a story of conquest and collapse.

The Reddit posts were static images, posted once a week, then lost to the scroll. We wanted to see the entire war unfold—so we built a time slider. Now you can drag through any season and watch empires rise and fall.

History of ImperialismMap.com

This project started in 2018, when I built a simple, non-interactive imperialism map as a way of learning JavaScript, D3.js, and frontend development in general. I never published it and it got forgotten in a folder for years, until I rediscovered the project in 2024. While the concept was still popular on Reddit, I couldn't find a dedicated, interactive website built around the idea. So I decided to revive the project when I realized people were still searching for this content online. I've been working on it as a fun side project in my spare time ever since.

What You Can Do Here

Rewind Any Season

Drag the time slider to any point in any season. Watch empires grow and collapse. Find the exact moment everything changed.

Go Back to the Beginning

MLB from 1871. NFL from 1920. NBA, NHL, even historic leagues like the ABA. Discover territorial wars across 150+ years of professional sports.

Historically Accurate

Every map uses exact venue geocoordinates, period-correct team names, and authentic team colors for each era. When teams moved, rebranded, or changed stadiums—the maps reflect it.

Discover Hidden Stories

Find the upset that reshuffled everything. See which team briefly controlled 30 territories. Trace how your rival lost their empire.

Technical Details

This site is built with:

D3.js for the interactive map visualizations and Voronoi territory calculations
Django-Distill for static site generation with the flexibility of Django
ESPN's API for real-time game results and team data
Python ETL scripts for data processing and geocoding stadium locations
AI assistance - Most of the code for this project was written in collaboration with Claude and Gemini.

What's Next?

This project is constantly evolving. On the roadmap:

Create your own imperialism maps for fantasy leagues or video games
County-based territories (instead of Voronoi diagrams)
Population and demographic data for territories
More sports and leagues
Weekly email updates during the season

The Endgame Problem

The imperialism map concept works best for football's short season. In sports with many games (NBA, MLB), one team often ends up controlling everything before the season ends. We're experimenting with solutions like mid-season resets and alternative rules.

Get In Touch

Have ideas for new features? Found a bug? Want to see your favorite sport added? I'd love to hear from you!

This is a passion project built by a single developer who loves maps, sports, and data visualization. Your feedback helps make it better for everyone.

Contact Me