Updates
What changed on the map, and when.
Where the lines stand
Fronts that move are redrawn by hand, one region at a time. Each date is the last time its lines were redrawn.
Government and armed group territorial control needs a refresh — the borders currently shown are no longer current.
The Russo-Ukrainian frontline (Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson) has moved since it was last drawn and needs a refresh.
Government, Tigray (TPLF), Fano, OLA and Afar-front areas are drawn as of October 2026, with the Ethiopian land held by Eritrea, its advance into Afar included.
The army, the Rapid Support Forces and their allies in Sudan, and the government and the SPLM-IO in South Sudan, are drawn as of October 2026, each in its own colour, with their allies across the borders.
Houthi, government and other faction lines are drawn as of October 2026. The Houthis hold most of the Red Sea coast they overran in September 2026, down to Mocha; the Yemeni National Resistance keeps a pocket north of Bab al-Mandab. The Southern Transitional Council no longer holds territory as a separate authority — the smaller area where separatist remnants persist is drawn as government-held and hatched.
The Tripoli government (GNU), Haftar’s Libyan National Army, and the Tuareg and Tubu areas of the far south are up to date.
Government and JNIM/ISGS-influenced area borders are up to date.
Borders and the jihadist-held pockets on Chad’s shore of Lake Chad are up to date.
Government, Tuareg, and jihadist-controlled area borders are up to date.
Borders and Sahel alliance territorial representation are up to date.
The ground held by the Islamic State West Africa Province and by Boko Haram round Lake Chad and in northern Borno is up to date.
The war in the east is drawn as of September 2026: ground held by M23 and its ally Twirwaneho, the zones where CODECO and Zaire (CRP) share authority with the state, where the ADF is active, and where Uganda’s army operates.
The borders of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan as the treaties of 2023–25 left them: every line agreed, the exclaves in place, and the formerly disputed ground marked as settled.
Recent Israeli occupations in southern Lebanon is reflected.
Reflects the dissolution of the SDF and the return of the northeast to Damascus. Government, Druze, Israeli-held and Turkish-garrisoned areas are all current.
Resistance and ethnic armed organization territory boundaries are up to date.
Al-Shabaab and government-controlled areas are relatively stable and up to date.
Not drawn yet
These come next. Once they are drawn, the de facto map is complete and Atlynx reaches 1.0.
Afghanistan
Not yet mapped. The Taliban hold the country, so the map here is less about frontlines than about where Islamic State–Khorasan and remaining resistance fronts are active.
Cameroon
Boko Haram and ISWAP ground on the Far North border is now mapped; the Anglophone conflict — separatist control across the Northwest and Southwest regions — is not yet.
Colombia
Armed group territory is not yet mapped — the ELN, FARC dissident fronts and the Clan del Golfo hold or contest ground across Catatumbo, Cauca, Chocó and the Venezuelan border.
Mexico
Cartel territorial control is not yet mapped — Sinaloa, the CJNG and the smaller regional organizations that dominate large parts of the country.
Changes
October 2026
13 Oct
2026South Sudan in colour, and the alliances between the Horn’s wars
South Sudan’s government and the SPLM-IO now have colours of their own, every side in Sudan and South Sudan has a written account, and the map shows who stands with whom across the borders of Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Uganda.
- South Sudan: the government is drawn in periwinkle and the SPLM-IO in green, about a third of the country. Both are in the legend, and a click on either row hides it.
- Select any side in Sudan’s war and its partners next door appear. Eritrea, allied to the army, sits behind a solid edge in the army’s red. The ground of Ethiopia’s federal government, where Reuters reported a training camp for RSF fighters in February 2026, sits behind a dashed edge in the RSF’s orange.
- Select Ethiopia, Eritrea or any of the Ethiopian movements and the same two ties show from the other side: Sudan’s army edged in Eritrea’s blue, the RSF edged in Ethiopia’s green.
- Select South Sudan or the SPLM-IO and Uganda, whose army has been in Juba since March 2025, is washed in its own yellow. Uganda’s panel shows South Sudan’s government ground the same way.
- A solid edge is an open alliance; a dashed edge is backing that has been reported but not acknowledged. What rests on one side’s word alone, such as Ethiopia’s charge that Sudan’s army and Eritrea arm the TPLF and Fano, is written in the panel and not drawn.
- The Alliances tab of each of these panels opens with a new list, Backers and allies: a sentence on every tie, who says so, and a button that takes you to the other side.
- Sudan, the Rapid Support Forces, the Darfur Joint Force, the SPLM-N, the Sudan Liberation Movement, South Sudan and the SPLM-IO each have a new written account of who they are and what they hold. Sudan and South Sudan list the organisations they belong to; the RSF and the SPLM-N list their Sudan Founding Alliance.
- Wau, Bor and Bentiu are now on the map in South Sudan.
13 Oct
2026Yemen redrawn
Yemen’s lines are redrawn as of October 2026: the Houthis’ gains on the Red Sea coast are now part of their own territory, and the Yemeni National Resistance is back on the map with the pocket it still holds.
- The Red Sea coast: the ground the Houthis overran in September 2026, down to Mocha, is drawn as plain Houthi territory. It is no longer striped as a recent gain, and the dashed line of the old front is gone.
- The Yemeni National Resistance holds a pocket round Dhubab, north of Bab al-Mandab. It has its own colour, name and legend row again, and clicking it selects it.
- The area hatched for Southern Transitional Council remnants is smaller, now centred on Dhale. Taiz, Lahij and the coast west of Aden are drawn as plain government territory.
- Elsewhere the front has moved a little: the Houthis have gained ground in eastern al-Jawf, west of Taiz and round Haradh; the government has gained near Midi and round Marib.
13 Oct
2026Ethiopia and Eritrea redrawn
Northern Ethiopia is redrawn as of October 2026: the federal army in Mekelle and eastern Tigray, Eritrea’s army across the border in Afar, and new ground for Fano and the Oromo Liberation Army.
- Tigray: the federal government is now drawn in Mekelle, the regional capital, and in the east and south of the region, from Adigrat down to Alamata, with a strip round Aksum and Adwa. The TPLF holds the centre and the north-west, around Shire.
- Afar: Eritrea’s army has crossed the border and holds a strip of some 6,600 km², from the salt flats of Dallol to the corner where Ethiopia, Eritrea and Djibouti meet. It is drawn in Eritrea’s blue. Click it to read about it; Eritrea’s panel lists it with the ground it holds, Ethiopia’s with the ground it claims.
- Fano has gained ground in the highlands south of Lalibela, and lost Sekota and the country round it to the government.
- The Oromo Liberation Army has three new pockets in the far west of Oromia.
- The Afar National Unity Revolutionary Front’s ground is now further north, on the edge of Tigray east of Adigrat.
13 Oct
2026Sudan and South Sudan redrawn
The lines in Sudan and South Sudan are redrawn as of October 2026: the army back in northern Kordofan, more ground for the Darfur Joint Force, and the SPLM-IO further into Eastern Equatoria.
- Kordofan: the army’s ground now reaches north and west of El Obeid and takes in Bara and Sodiri, which the Rapid Support Forces held on the previous map.
- Darfur: the Darfur Joint Force, allied to the army, holds more ground along the Chadian border in the north-west.
- South Sudan: the SPLM-IO’s ground in Eastern Equatoria has grown, leaving the government a pocket in the south of the state.
- Sudan had been listed among the regions whose lines were out of date; it is current again.
7 Oct
2026The Mecca Accords
The defence pact Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan signed in Mecca on 7 August 2026 is now on the map, among the military alliances in the World Order panel.
- Switch it on from World Order to see the three members in green. Under the pact an attack on one is an attack on all; it was put into effect for the first time on 6 October 2026, when Turkey and Pakistan committed forces to Saudi Arabia’s defence.
- Saudi Arabia’s, Turkey’s and Pakistan’s own panels list it too, so it can be switched on from any of the three.
4 Oct
431 B.C.New lettering for every name on the map
Every state’s name has been relettered like a printed historical atlas: it sits inside its own land, appears once there is room for it, and its lettering tells empires, powers, city-states and peoples apart.
- Empires are set in large, widely spaced capitals; great powers and leagues in bold capitals; regional states in smaller ones; city-states in the smallest; peoples and tribes in spaced lowercase.
- A name now appears when its land can hold it, so the map fills in as you zoom: the great powers first, then the regional states, then the city-states of the Peloponnese and Sicily, without names running into each other.
- The Athenian Empire’s name curves across the Aegean, and the Achaemenid Empire’s across its lands from Anatolia to Iran.
- With “show all labels” on, every name that can be placed is shown, and names step aside rather than pile on top of one another.
4 Oct
431 B.C.Clearer names on the map
The great powers’ names now stay readable over the crowd of smaller states, and Persia is named wherever you look at Greece.
- The Achaemenid Empire’s name now also stands over Anatolia, so it is on screen in every view of the Aegean.
- Corinth, the Boeotian League and Syracuse keep their names when you zoom in among their smaller neighbours, and Carthage’s name no longer runs into the Massylii.
- Epirus, the Thessalian League and the Samnites are named from the wider view, alongside the other regional powers.
4 Oct
218 B.C.Lesser Armenia and Sophene: two corrections
The Armenian panels are corrected: Lesser Armenia’s neighbours across the Euphrates are the Orontid kings, and Mount Nemrut belongs to Commagene, not Sophene.
- Lesser Armenia’s panel named the kings across the Euphrates as Artaxiads. In 218 BC they are still the Orontids; Artaxias only takes the crown after 190 BC.
- Sophene’s panel placed Mount Nemrut and its sanctuaries in the kingdom. Nemrut stands in Commagene, and its great sanctuary was built more than a century later. The section now describes the faith of Sophene itself.
4 Oct
2026Energy: the world’s pipelines, terminals, and where the oil goes
A new Energy view shows the world’s oil and gas pipelines, LNG terminals and crude export terminals with the oil and gas fields, says whose ground each pipeline crosses, and follows a field’s oil to the sea.
- Choose Energy in the map’s view menu. Oil pipelines are red-brown, natural gas liquids violet, gas blue; the thicker the line, the more it carries. Lines being built or planned are dashed; stopped and cancelled ones can be switched on from the key.
- LNG terminals are teal squares: an arrow up where gas is cooled into liquid and shipped out, an arrow down where it arrives by sea. Their cards list every train or phase, its capacity and when it started or will start.
- Click a pipeline to see what it carries and how much, where it runs from and to, who owns it, and whose ground it crosses on this map. In Libya the oil of El Sharara crosses ground held by the Libyan National Army on its way to the Government of National Unity’s coast; the Greater Nile line runs through ground held by the Sudanese army, the Rapid Support Forces and the SPLM-IO; Kirkuk–Ceyhan crosses Kurdistan.
- 35 crude export terminals are marked in red-orange, each with who holds its ground, whether it is loading tankers, and a source for what has happened to it lately: Libya’s seven, the Gulf’s during the war with Iran, Russia’s Baltic and Black Sea ports under drone attack, Port Sudan, Ceyhan and more.
- Follow the oil: open a field and the pipelines its oil runs through light up as far as the terminal where it is loaded; open a terminal and every field and pipeline that feeds it lights up. Waha’s oil reaches Es Sider; Es Sider is fed by seven fields, all in ground held by the Libyan National Army.
- With the Energy view on, a country’s panel adds an Energy section: its large fields, who holds the ground its output comes from, its pipelines, LNG capacity and crude terminals.
- The strategic ones glow: about 40 pipelines and LNG terminals and 15 crude terminals that matter beyond their size, from the Saudi and Emirati lines around Hormuz to Druzhba, TurkStream, Power of Siberia and Qatar’s Ras Laffan. Their cards say why, with a source; “Strategic only” in the key hides everything else.
- Routes that are only roughly known are drawn faint. Each switch in the key shows or hides one group.
3 Oct
2026The world’s oil and gas fields
Switch on “Oil & Gas Fields” in the map menu to see nearly 5,800 of the world’s large oil and gas fields, sized by what they produce and placed in the ground of whoever holds it.
- Each field is a dot: red-orange for oil, blue for gas, gold for both. The bigger the dot, the more it produces a year. Solid dots are producing; rings are fields found but not yet developed, being developed, or shut in.
- Click a field to see its output in barrels a day, who runs and owns it, when it started producing, and who holds the ground it lies in on this map. In Libya, most of the Sirte basin’s fields lie in ground held by the Libyan National Army; in Iraq, the fields of the north lie in Kurdistan.
- Where several fields share one spot, the card lists them all.
- The fields come from Global Energy Monitor’s Global Oil and Gas Extraction Tracker (March 2026). It lists the large fields only, so small producers are missing, and a few countries, Sudan and Yemen among them, are barely covered.
3 Oct
2026Libya: the Tuareg and the Tubu where they live, and two more Russian bases
In Libya’s far south the Tuareg and the Tubu had been drawn in each other’s place. They are now where they live, and Russia’s air bases in Libya are all on the map.
- The Tuareg area now covers the south-west along the Algerian border, around Ghat, in the Tuareg’s sky blue.
- The Tubu area now runs along the borders with Niger and Chad, from south of Murzuq to the edge of the Tibesti, in the Tubu’s dark red. Murzuq shows in Tubu colours and Ghat in Tuareg colours.
- Two more Russian bases are on the map: Al-Qardabiyah, the military side of Sirte’s airport, and Tamanhint near Sabha. With Al-Khadim, Al-Jufra, Brak al-Shati and Maaten al-Sarra, that makes all six air bases where Russia’s Africa Corps is reported at work, plus the port of Tobruk.
3 Oct
2026France’s contested islands, and the bases it left in Africa
The Comoros’ claim to Mayotte and Vanuatu’s claim to Matthew and Hunter are now on the map, and France’s former bases in Africa appear among its former bases.
- Select the Comoros and switch on “Claimed by the Comoros, held by France”: Mayotte now shows beside the Glorioso Islands, and opens as Maore from the Comoros’ Territories tab.
- Vanuatu is now on the map in its own colour, with a “Claimed territories” switch for Matthew and Hunter, the two islets it took to the International Court of Justice on 1 September 2026.
- On France’s map, “Held by France, claimed by …” now also outlines Mayotte and Matthew and Hunter, and names the Comoros and Vanuatu.
- With France selected, the former bases show where its troops have left since 2022: Gao in Mali, Kamboinsin in Burkina Faso, Niamey in Niger, N’Djamena, Faya and Abéché in Chad, Port-Bouët in Côte d’Ivoire and Dakar in Senegal, each with the date it closed. Camp de Gaulle in Libreville joins them: since July 2026 it is a training camp shared with Gabon, no longer a French base.
Where each line comes from is on Sources. Found a mistake? Write to Atlynx.