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.
Babylon is inseparable from the history of Mesopotamian cities. Its
archaeological remains invite you to imagine a major political and
religious centre. Distinguish surviving ancient material from later
reconstruction when reading the site: both affect what a visitor
sees.
On the Tigris, Ashur was an important Assyrian political and
religious centre. The setting is part of its story, connecting the
city to movement along the river. Its archaeological remains are
best understood as pieces of a larger urban and sacred landscape.
Hatra’s monumental architecture reflects a meeting of traditions in
a fortified city of the Parthian period. Its temples are central to
that story. The site has suffered serious damage, so present access
and conservation conditions need checking before any visit.
Samarra introduces the Abbasid period, centuries after the ancient
cities to the south. Its vast archaeological area shows the ambition
of an Islamic capital. The spiral minaret is the familiar landmark,
but the city’s wider plan is equally important.
Erbil’s citadel rises above the surrounding city on a mound shaped
by successive occupation. Its visible buildings do not all belong to
the earliest periods. Look at the elevated setting and the
arrangement of streets to understand the relationship between
settlement and landscape.
