Every Currency on Earth: 2000 BC–2026
How did money travel from weighed silver to the currencies we use today? Explore more than 4,000 years with a changing world map, ten historical milestones and an animated ranking of the largest cities.
Press play, drag the timeline or choose a milestone. The map follows the 4K film’s currency regions while the city ranking uses the same historical population series. Follow early electrum coinage, Roman silver, Chinese paper money, medieval gold, national currencies and the euro.
How to read the map
The map is sampled from the finished film at selected dates. It blends between those images for smooth seeking; the images between samples are visual transitions, not a claim that currency areas moved at a constant rate. Grey regions mean that the project has not classified their monetary systems, not that people there lacked money. Some currencies circulated together, and modern legal tender does not describe every local or informal use.
The city list shows the largest cities with available estimates. Ancient records are incomplete and city boundaries and definitions change over time. The underlying figures animate between observations; they are not yearly censuses. The 2026 city figures are projections.
About the data
Ancient and medieval currency areas are historical reconstructions based on surviving evidence. Many boundaries and adoption dates are uncertain. Population associated with a currency means residents of its mapped circulation area, not a count of individual coin or note users. Medieval and early modern areas often use territorial proxies. The film is a broad visual history, not an exhaustive catalogue of every currency or denomination.
The 10 illustrated money cards are editorial artwork, not photographs of authenticated coins. Their historical claims draw on linked museum, mint, university and central-bank sources. The geographic and population layers combine the project's reviewed historical records with Natural Earth and HYDE. Modern currency records draw on Unicode CLDR and SIX ISO 4217.
The city estimates draw on Reba, Reitsma and Seto’s digitized Chandler and Modelski series and UN World Urbanization Prospects 2025 for recent years. The UN’s 2026 figures are projections.
More animated histories
Explore Europe’s changing population, Asia’s changing population, the world resized by GDP, and the rise and fall of billionaires.
Timeline summary and key events
In Jan 2000 BC, the leading cities in this dataset were Ur (65.00K), Memphis (60.00K), Girsu (40.00K). By Jan 2026, the leaders were Jakarta (42.46M), Dhaka (37.43M), Tokyo (33.34M).
- — Silver by weight In Mesopotamia, merchants exchanged pieces of silver by weight. The shekel was a measure before it became a coin. Source Source 2
- — Electrum coinage Early electrum coins appear in western Anatolia. Their chronology and exact mint origins are still debated. Source Source 2
- — Silver denarius Around 211 BC, Rome introduces the silver denarius during the Second Punic War. It becomes a cornerstone of Roman coinage.
- — Gold dinar A surviving gold dinar from Damascus records the monetary reform of Abd al-Malik in 696–697 AD. Source
- — Jiaozi paper money Paper notes join a world of metal coinage. In Sichuan, the Song state takes over the issuing of jiaozi. Source Source 2
- — Gold florin Florence begins minting the gold florin in 1252. Its lily design becomes a familiar symbol of the city’s merchants and bankers.
- — U.S. dollar ($) The United States establishes its mint. Spanish dollars and other foreign coins still circulate alongside the new national money. Source
- — Japanese yen (¥) The New Currency Act establishes the yen as Japan’s basic monetary unit, replacing an older and more complex system. Source
- — The ruble is stabilised The 1922–1924 monetary reform concludes. New treasury rubles replace depreciated sovznaks, with ten rubles equal to one chervonets.
- — Euro cash arrives (€) Euro notes and coins enter circulation in 12 countries on 1 January 2002. National currencies are exchanged during a short changeover period.
Sign in or create an account to comment.
0 comments
Be the first to share your perspective.