Key
At the selected date, the colour of each place shows who held it. To learn its story, click or tap a country or marker.
Drag to move · scroll to zoom · click a country or marker
To move the map on a touch screen, drag it. Pinch to zoom, or double-tap to zoom in.
When Mao Zedong’s Communist Party proclaimed the People’s Republic of China in October 1949, it had won a civil war. Over the twenty-seven years that followed, until Mao’s death in September 1976, the Party ruled China through a state that could reach into every village, factory and family. How did it gain and maintain that reach? And what did its methods mean for the hundreds of millions of people it governed?
The atlas follows these years province by province. Land reform, the collectives, the people’s communes and the Cultural Revolution did not move across China at the same pace; the map shows each campaign arriving. Red hatching indicates a campaign under way, and solid red shows the order it left behind. Charcoal identifies the provinces where the Great Famine of 1959–61 killed most.
Across twelve chapters, we examine why the regime emerged so strong, how it maintained its power, and how peasants, workers, women, minorities and the young saw their lives change. We also encounter those who challenged it, from Tibetan rebels and outspoken students to Mao’s own defense minister. The rim of the map follows a change in China’s foreign relationships: Beijing’s Soviet ally became its enemy, while its American enemy became a partner. Each site is drawn where it happened, and the worst of the era is marked as memory. You can follow the guided tour or scrub the timeline and put your own questions to the map.
Keys: ←→ chapters · space play time · +− zoom · ⌘K search · ? all keys.
You can return to the library of twenty-one atlases at any time: select the balloon at the top left.