Choose a continent, then guess its highlighted countries.
Choose your adventure
About Karshvar
I built Karshvar to make discovering the world easier for people who
love reading history. My biggest difficulty was always geography:
from Anatolia to the Caucasus, from the Iranian plateau to
Byzantium, I kept losing track of where important events happened.
So I started studying geography, and this game grew out of that
learning. It is both a way to test myself and a step toward the
offline companion I wanted for exploring the world. I plan to add
more historical features over time.
Karshvar takes its name from an ancient Iranian word related to
today’s Persian word for country. In Avestan cosmology, the world
was described as seven regions.
Pont du Gard · Arles · Orange · Maison Carrée, Nîmes · Vézère Valley
1
Pont du Gard
This Roman aqueduct bridge is an engineering lesson you can read
from the riverbank. Its stacked arches carried water across a
difficult landscape. Look at the rhythm of the stonework and imagine
the longer water supply system of which this was only one part.
Arles is useful for seeing how a modern town lives around older
monuments. Its Roman amphitheatre and theatre are major landmarks,
while the Romanesque heritage adds another period to the story. Do
not mistake every historic building here for a Roman one.
The Roman theatre at Orange is memorable for its surviving stage
wall. Think about how architecture framed a performance for a large
audience. The triumphal arch adds another perspective on the public
monuments of Roman Gaul.
This Roman temple is a good place to slow down and look at
proportion. Its columns, raised podium and façade make a compact
lesson in classical architecture. Unlike a sprawling archaeological
park, the interest is concentrated in one remarkably legible
building.
The Vézère Valley takes you much further back, into prehistory. Its
caves and archaeological sites reveal a long relationship between
people and landscape. Original decorated caves have conservation
restrictions; distinguish an original site from a visitor replica
when planning.
