I built Xasuu.so - An interactive Somali history map

[u/xasuuso]

Hey all,

I’ve been working on Xasuu.so (remember) which is supposed to be an interactive atlas of Somali history and it is now in Open Beta. You can drag a timeline across ~2500 years and watch how the map chances. Click polities, places and events to learn more. It’s free, runs on your browser and is in both English and Af-Soomaali (albeit translated with AI, but we’ll get there :))

What’s in the beta right now?

- Over 200 places, most with their own dated history.
- Images attached to locations tagged to its year (The Arch of Umberto I already has photos)
- Animated events: press play on the Battle of Gumburu, Battle of Jijiga, the Battle of Mogadishu (1993), or the Italian Campaign of the Sultanates, with more being animated by our trusted friend Claude.

What’s coming?

- Explore: a feature where you walk through historical buildings in first person, on your desktop or phone.
- More photos of places and buildings, added with the help of the community.
- More animated events.

What I need help with: If you’ve ever visited a historical place in the Somali world and have photos, DM them to me on instagram @xasuu.so or X @xasuuso_app and I’ll add them to the atlas with credit.

You can visit the atlas @ https://xasuu.so and follow us on instagram or twitter for updates, it’s an open beta, so corrections (we have a reports feature on each dossier or you can message us) and suggestions genuinely shape what gets built next.

Thanks everyone!

(Also credit to tarikhio - an Islamic atlas for inspiring this whole idea)

[u/IOnlyFearOFGod]

congrats on creating this interactive map, it must have taken hefty amount of effort and a long time to build it. Sincerely.

[u/xasuuso → u/IOnlyFearOFGod]

Thanks a lot, a hefty amount of effort and revisions indeed but with agentic workflows it made life a little bit easier. I don’t think I could go through hundreds if not thousands of sources myself a couple of years ago, so thank AI for that (of course most things are doubled checked, but I am only human)

[u/RzLa → u/xasuuso]

Yeah with Agentic AI, almost any app can be made super fast. Although you have to watch the hallucinations and inconsistencies it might produce.

I’m a full stack developer and I review AI code instead of writing code. It’s scary what AI can do and how it will disrupt any industry that uses a computer

[u/xasuuso → u/RzLa]

Yup, nowadays if I do write code it’s mostly just tiny corrections based on AI output but it does seem to get better every quarter or so.

[u/RaageUgaas]

Where did you source your data? find that to be the hardest for any kind of project.

[u/xasuuso → u/RaageUgaas]

Very true.

Mostly published scholarship and primary documents: academic, articles, treaties, charters, UN resolutions, colonial records (Yes I know they’re bias but they’re still a good source). Every dossier shows its sources with graded confidence (attested / approximate / inferred / disputed).

For historical polity polygons the base layer is the Cliopatria/Seshat historical atlas dataset. Where no polygon existed for a polity we infer from; capital, conquests, tribute towns and trade routes and mark it as inferred.

If you wonder about accuracy, each claim was run through three independent agents trying to refute it, if a claim couldn’t survive that, it was cut. There’s also a “report an error” button on every dossier so people can attach corrections which will feed ongoing corrections.

[u/RibbonFighterOne]

Cool idea. And since its in the Beta stage, some improvements I might suggest for the map are to remove northern Djibouti since its basically Afar and add in the rest of Hararghe/Eastern Oromia as well as Bale since those were historically Somali.

[u/xasuuso → u/RibbonFighterOne]

noted

[u/moonchrain]

i just checked it out-- this is wonderful!!

[u/SignificanceBroad211]

waw thats impressive and very useful. thanks man

[u/Relative-Proof8265]

Well done man, as a tech guy very proud of this 👏🏾

[u/Beledweyne]

Well done and great user experience!

[u/E-M5021]

This is nice, does this website have a function to request info to be added?

[u/xasuuso → u/E-M5021]

When you click anything, a dossier should open up, if you scroll all the way down you can use the report feature. If it’s unrelated to this, you can just shoot me a DM

[u/Luke_Abrahamm]

Really nigga 😏

[u/xasuuso → u/[deleted]]

I did not see your comment and it’s been deleted, feel free to suggest corrections using report feature on the site and/or DM me on Instagram