AP World Unit 1: Global Tapestry

This is Cahokia, located near present-day Collinsville, Illinois, USA — built precisely where the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers meet in the broad, flat heartland of North America. At its peak…

This is Chaco Canyon, located in present-day New Mexico in the American Southwest — a high desert basin set within the Colorado Plateau, deep in the interior of North America far from any coast…

Cliff Palace sits inside Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado, in the southwestern United States — exactly where the Rocky Mountains break into the high desert canyon country of the Colorado Plateau…

This is Constantinople — modern Istanbul, Turkey — sitting precisely on the Bosphorus strait where Europe and Asia face each other across a narrow channel, and where the Black Sea empties southward…

This event unfolded in Delhi, the city sitting on the flat Indo-Gangetic Plain in northern India, exactly where the Himalayas to the north give way to the vast lowlands stretching toward the Deccan…

Runnymede is a flat meadow on the southern bank of the River Thames in England, sitting on the island of Great Britain just west of London — exactly the kind of quiet riverside ground where a king…

From around the 1220s to 1441 CE, Mayapán served as the political capital of a confederation of Maya city-states across the northern Yucatán Peninsula in what is now the state of Yucatán, Mexico. The…

The pin belongs at Kouroukan Fouga, in what is now southern Mali — right where the upper Niger River winds through the West African interior, deep in the Saharan borderlands that the clue called the…

This event unfolded in Sukhothai, in what is now north-central Thailand, on the inland plains of the Southeast Asian peninsula — exactly the region framed by major river systems to the west and east…

This is Baghdad, the capital of modern Iraq, sitting on the Tigris River in the broad lowland plain of Mesopotamia — the ancient 'land between the rivers' flanked by the Zagros Mountains to the east…

Ain Jalut is a spring and valley in what is now northern Israel, sitting in the land bridge that links Africa to Asia — with the Mediterranean Sea to the west and the Jordan River valley to the east…

This event unfolded in Khanbaliq, the city now known as Beijing, in northern China — sitting on the North China Plain where the terrain flattens out just south of the mountains that separate China…

This battle took place at Yamen, near the mouth of the Pearl River delta on the southern coast of China, where sheltered coastal waters meet the South China Sea — the bay the title clue anchored on…

This event unfolded at Trowulan, on the island of Java in present-day Indonesia — sitting between the South China Sea to the north and the Indian Ocean to the south, at the maritime crossroads of…

This event unfolded in Söğüt, a small town in northwestern Turkey — sitting on the Anatolian plateau, roughly between the Black Sea to the north and the Sea of Marmara to the south, close to the…

Around 1300 CE Great Zimbabwe — a walled stone city on the granite plateau of what is now south-central Zimbabwe, near modern Masvingo — reached the height of its power as the political and…

In 1324 CE Mansa Musa, ruler of the Mali Empire, departed from Niani — his capital on the upper Sankarani River (a Niger tributary) in what is now northeastern Guinea — on hajj to Mecca, crossing the…

This is Tenochtitlan, founded in 1325 on an island in Lake Texcoco — sitting in the high basin of central Mexico, exactly the highland plateau the title described, ringed by volcanic peaks. The…

This is Tenochtitlan, the island city built on a lake in the high Valley of Mexico — the same site now occupied by Mexico City, sitting on a plateau ringed by volcanic peaks in the interior of the…

Kilwa Kisiwani, Tanzania — a small island separated from the East African mainland by a narrow tidal channel in the southwestern Indian Ocean — was described by the Moroccan traveler Ibn Battuta in…

This event unfolded at Vijayanagara — modern-day Hampi — in southern India, on the Deccan Plateau between the Arabian Sea to the west and the Bay of Bengal to the east. In 1336, brothers Harihara I…

Niani, Guinea — the probable capital of the Mali Empire, situated along the upper Niger River where it bends northward in the Manden heartland of present-day Guinea — was visited by the Moroccan…

Trowulan, Indonesia — located on the fertile volcanic plain of eastern Java, roughly 60 km southwest of present-day Surabaya and positioned between the Java Sea to the north and the Indian Ocean to…

This event unfolded in Nanjing, China — a city on the lower Yangtze River plain, roughly where that great river curves toward the East China Sea, deep in the heart of eastern China. In 1368, Zhu…

This is Xochimilco, on the southern edge of what is now Mexico City, Mexico — a high-altitude lake basin ringed by volcanic mountains in the heart of North America. Around 1400, the Aztec…

This is Malacca, on the southwestern coast of the Malay Peninsula in modern Malaysia — sitting precisely at the strait where the Indian Ocean's trade winds funnel ships into the South China Sea…

This is Beijing, the capital of modern China, sitting on the North China Plain where the mountains of the northwest give way to the broad lowlands stretching toward the Bohai Sea. In the early 1400s…

This took place in Rouen, a city in northwestern France, sitting on a bend of the Seine River roughly 130 kilometres from where it meets the English Channel — exactly the waterway that separates…

This event unfolded in Cusco, Peru — a city perched high in the Andes mountains, deep in the interior of South America's western spine, thousands of metres above sea level. Around 1438 CE, the ruler…

This is Machu Picchu, perched on a mountain ridge in present-day Peru, high in the Andes range that runs like a spine down the western side of South America. Around 1450 CE, Inca builders constructed…