Riga: 825 Years in 9 Minutes | 3D Timelapse (1201–2026)

In July 1812 Riga set fire to its own suburbs to stop Napoleon's army. Napoleon never came. This is how a bishop's town of 1201 became the capital of Latvia: 825 years in one 3D timelapse, built from real map data — for three in four buildings the construction year comes from the Latvian cadastre. Watch the stone wall go up, St. Peter's spire rise, fall, burn and rise again, Swedish bastions and sieges, the walls come down for boulevards, the Art Nouveau boom, the Freedom Monument, war and occupation, the Soviet districts and the TV tower, and Riga today. About this film: it's built from publicly available historical sources and maps, but it is an artistic interpretation of how the city may have grown, not an exact reconstruction, so some details will differ from reality. If you spot something we got wrong, tell us in the comments. We read every one, and your notes shape the next cities. 0:00 The Bishop's Town (1201–1330) 1:30 The Hanseatic City (1330–1621) 2:55 The Fortress City (1621–1857) 4:20 The Boom City (1857–1918) 5:45 Independence, War and Occupation (1918–1991) 7:10 Riga Today (1991–2026) 8:35 Then and Now + 825 years in 20 seconds Construction years and floors: Latvian State Land Service cadastre (open data); footprints and streets: OpenStreetMap / Overture Maps; terrain: SRTM. Reconstruction (illustrative, not exact): years of buildings the cadastre does not date, the wall line, the extent of the 1812 fire, landmark shapes and bridge forms. Population: censuses 1897–2021 and 2025 (no counter in the war years). Dates: Wikipedia per landmark (list on request). Genoa is next (you asked!). Which city after that? Riga locals: what did we get wrong? Sound credits: "Master of the Feast (ISRC USUAN1400019)" by Kevin MacLeod (Wikimedia Commons, uploaded by Fæ) (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi..., licensed under CC BY 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...) "Minstrel Guild (ISRC USUAN1200098)" by Kevin MacLeod (Wikimedia Commons, uploaded by Fæ) (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi..., licensed under CC BY 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...) "Teller of the Tales (ISRC USUAN1400020)" by Kevin MacLeod (Wikimedia Commons, uploaded by Fæ) (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi..., licensed under CC BY 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...) "Lord of the Land (ISRC USUAN1400022)" by Kevin MacLeod (Wikimedia Commons, uploaded by Fæ) (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi..., licensed under CC BY 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...) "Long Note Three (ISRC USUAN1100424)" by Kevin MacLeod (Wikimedia Commons, uploaded by Fæ) (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi..., licensed under CC BY 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...) "New growth" by Bigvegie (https://freesound.org/people/Bigvegie..., CC0 Map data: © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL) via Overture Maps Foundation (buildings also include Google Open Buildings / Microsoft ML Building Footprints, CDLA-Permissive-2.0). Building construction years and floors: Latvian State Land Service (VZD), Cadastre Information System open data, CC BY 4.0 (data.gov.lv). Terrain: AWS Open Data terrain tiles (Mapzen / SRTM). #Riga #Latvia #3DTimelapse #CityEvolution #History