List of largest empires: Difference between revisions

[[File:The Harmsworth atlas and Gazetter 1908 (135853015).jpg|thumb|right|The home and colonial areas of the world's empires in 1908, as given by ''The Harmsworth Atlas and Gazetteer'']]

Empire size in this list is defined as the dry land area it controlled at the time, which may differ considerably from the area it claimed. For example: in the year 1800, European powers collectively claimed approximately {{#expr:55-35}}% of the Earth's land surface that they did not effectively control.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Magdoff|first=Harry|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=A9pWCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA29|title=Imperialism: From the Colonial Age to the Present|date=1979|publisher=NYU Press|isbn=978-0-85345-498-4|pages=29|language=en|quote=[I]n 1800 Europe and its possessions, including former colonies, claimed title to about 55 percent of the earth's land surface: Europe, North and South America, most of India, and small sections along the coast of Africa. But much of this was merely claimed; effective control existed over a little less than 35 percent, most of which consisted of Europe itself. By 1878—that is, before the next major wave of European acquisitions began—an additional 6,500,000 square miles (16,800,000 square kilometers) were claimed; during this period, control was consolidated over the new claims and over all the territory claimed in 1800. Hence, from 1800 until 1878, actual European rule (including former colonies in North and South America), increased from 35 to 67 percent of the earth's land surface.|author-link=Harry Magdoff|access-date=2020-07-19|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200719190026/https://books.google.com/books?id=A9pWCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA29|archive-date=2020-07-19|url-status=live}}</ref> Where estimates vary, entries are sorted by the ''lowest'' estimate. Where more than one entry has the same area, they are listed alphabetically.

! colspan="4" |Maximum land area

|-

|-

|35.5<ref name="Taagepera1997" />

|{{convert|35.5|km2|mi2|2|disp=number}}

|{{Date table sorting|1270}}<ref name="Turchin2006">{{cite journal|last1=Turchin|first1=Peter|author-link=Peter Turchin|last2=Adams|first2=Jonathan M.|last3=Hall|first3=Thomas D.|date=December 2006|title=East-West Orientation of Historical Empires|url=http://peterturchin.com/PDF/Turchin_Adams_Hall_2006.pdf|url-status=live|journal=[[Journal of World-Systems Research]]|volume=12|issue=2|pages=222–223|issn=1076-156X|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200707181315/http://peterturchin.com/PDF/Turchin_Adams_Hall_2006.pdf|archive-date=2020-07-07|access-date=2020-07-07}}</ref> or {{Date table sorting|1309}}<ref name="Taagepera1997" />

|-

|22.8<ref name="Taagepera1997" /><ref name="Turchin2006" />

|{{convert|22.8|km2|mi2|2|disp=number}}

|{{Date table sorting|1895}}<ref name="Taagepera1997" /><ref name="Turchin2006" />

|-

|14.7<ref name="Taagepera1997" /><ref name="Turchin2006" />

|{{convert|14.7|km2|mi2|2|disp=number}}

|-

|[[Xianbei state]]

|{{convert|4.5|km2|mi2|2|disp=number|abbr=}}

|{{percent|4.5|134.74|2|pad=yes}}

=== Timeline of largest empires to date ===

The earliest empire which can with certainty be stated to have been larger than all previous empires was that of [[Upper and Lower Egypt]], which covered ten times the area of the previous largest civilisation around the year 3000 BC.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Taagepera|first=Rein|author-link=Rein Taagepera|date=1997|title=Expansion and Contraction Patterns of Large Polities: Context for Russia|url=https://escholarship.org/content/qt3cn68807/qt3cn68807.pdf|url-status=live|journal=[[International Studies Quarterly]]|language=en|volume=41|issue=3|pages=480|doi=10.1111/0020-8833.00053|issn=0020-8833|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200707203055/https://escholarship.org/content/qt3cn68807/qt3cn68807.pdf|archive-date=2020-07-07|access-date=2020-07-07}}</ref>

|-

|-

|[[Upper and Lower Egypt]]

|0.1<ref name="Taagepera1978" />

|{{Date table sorting|-3000}}<ref name="Taagepera1978" />

|-

| rowspan="2" |[[Old Kingdom of Egypt]]

|0.25<ref name="Taagepera1978" />

|{{Date table sorting|-2850}}<ref name="Taagepera1978" />

|-

|0.4<ref name="Taagepera1978" />

|{{Date table sorting|-2400}}<ref name="Taagepera1978" />

|-

| rowspan="2" |[[Akkadian Empire]]

|0.65<ref name="Taagepera1978" />

|{{Date table sorting|-2300}}<ref name="Taagepera1978" />

|-

|0.8<ref name="Taagepera1978" />

|{{Date table sorting|-2250}}<ref name="Taagepera1978" />

|-

|[[New Kingdom of Egypt]]

|1.0<ref name="Taagepera1978">{{Cite journal|last=Taagepera|first=Rein|author-link=Rein Taagepera|date=1978|title=Size and Duration of Empires: Growth-Decline Curves, 3000 to 600 B.C.|url=https://escholarship.org/content/qt6wf6m5qg/qt6wf6m5qg.pdf|url-status=live|journal=[[Social Science Research]]|volume=7|issue=2|pages=182–189|doi=10.1016/0049-089x(78)90010-8|issn=0049-089X|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200707202816/https://escholarship.org/content/qt6wf6m5qg/qt6wf6m5qg.pdf|archive-date=2020-07-07|access-date=2020-07-07}}</ref>

|{{Date table sorting|-1450}}<ref name="Taagepera1978" />

|-

|[[Shang dynasty]]

|1.25<ref name="Taagepera1978" />

|{{Date table sorting|-1122}}<ref name="Taagepera1978" />

|-

|[[Neo-Assyrian Empire]]

|1.4<ref name="Taagepera1978" />

|{{Date table sorting|-670}}<ref name="Taagepera1978" />

|-

|[[Median Empire]]{{efn|group=Table2|More recent reassessment of the historical evidence, both archaeological and textual, has led modern scholars to question previous notions of the extent of the realm of the Medes and even its existence as a unified state.<ref name="MediaAndItsDiscontents" /> If the Median Empire never surpassed the size of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, the latter remained the largest empire the world had seen until the Achaemenid Empire surpassed it.<ref name="Taagepera1978" /><ref name="Taagepera1979" />}}

|2.8<ref name="Taagepera1979" />

|{{Date table sorting|-585}}<ref name="Taagepera1979" />

|-

| rowspan="2" |[[Achaemenid Empire]]

|3.6<ref name="Taagepera1979" />

|{{Date table sorting|-539}}<ref name="Taagepera1979" />

|-

|5.5<ref name="Taagepera1979" />

|{{Date table sorting|-500}}<ref name="Taagepera1979" />

|-

|[[Xiongnu Empire]]

|9.0<ref name="Taagepera1979" />

|{{Date table sorting|-176}}<ref name="Taagepera1979" />

|-

|[[Umayyad Caliphate]]

|11.1<ref name="Taagepera1997" />

|{{Date table sorting|720}}<ref name="Taagepera1997" />

|-

| rowspan="2" |[[Mongol Empire]]

|13.5<ref name="Taagepera1997" />

|{{Date table sorting|1227}}<ref name="Taagepera1997" />

|-

|24.0<ref name="Taagepera1997" />

|{{Date table sorting|1309}}<ref name="Taagepera1997" />

|-

| rowspan="2" |[[British Empire]]

|24.5<ref name="Taagepera1997" />

|{{Date table sorting|1880}}<ref name="Taagepera1997" />

|-

|35.5<ref name="Taagepera1997" />

|{{Date table sorting|1920}}<ref name="Taagepera1997" />

|-

|}

 

=== Timeline of largest empires at the time ===

|-

|[[Upper and Lower Egypt|Upper Egypt]]

|0.1

|{{Date table sorting|-3000}}

|-

|[[Old Kingdom of Egypt]]

|0.25–0.4

|{{Date table sorting|-2800}}{{Spaced en dash}}{{Date table sorting|-2400}}

|-

|[[Akkadian Empire]]

|0.2–0.6

|{{Date table sorting|-2300}}{{Spaced en dash}}{{Date table sorting|-2200}}

|-

|0.15

|{{Date table sorting|-2100}}

|-

|[[Middle Kingdom of Egypt]]

|0.2–0.5

|{{Date table sorting|-2000}}{{Spaced en dash}}{{Date table sorting|-1800}}

|-

|[[Xia dynasty]]

|0.4

|{{Date table sorting|-1700}}

|-

|[[Hyksos]]

|0.65

|{{Date table sorting|-1600}}

|-

|[[New Kingdom of Egypt]]

|0.65–1.0

|{{Date table sorting|-1500}}{{Spaced en dash}}{{Date table sorting|-1300}}

|-

|[[Shang dynasty]]

|0.9–1.1

|{{Date table sorting|-1250}}{{Spaced en dash}}{{Date table sorting|-1150}}

|-

|[[New Kingdom of Egypt]]

|0.5–0.6

|{{Date table sorting|-1100}}{{Spaced en dash}}{{Date table sorting|-1050}}

|-

|[[Zhou dynasty]]

|0.35–0.45

|{{Date table sorting|-1000}}{{Spaced en dash}}{{Date table sorting|-900}}

|-

|[[Neo-Assyrian Empire]]

|0.4–1.4

|{{Date table sorting|-850}}{{Spaced en dash}}{{Date table sorting|-650}}

|-

|3.0

|{{Date table sorting|-600}}

|-

|[[Achaemenid Empire]]

|2.5–5.5

|{{Date table sorting|-550}}{{Spaced en dash}}{{Date table sorting|-350}}

|-

|[[Macedonian Empire]]

|5.2

|{{Date table sorting|-323}}

|-

|[[Seleucid Empire]]

|4.0

|{{Date table sorting|-300}}

|-

|[[Maurya Empire]]

|3.5

|{{Date table sorting|-250}}

|-

|[[Han dynasty]]

|2.5

|{{Date table sorting|-200}}

|-

|[[Xiongnu Empire]]

|5.7

|{{Date table sorting|-150}}

|-

|[[Han dynasty]]

|4.2–6.5

|{{Date table sorting|-100}}{{Spaced en dash}}{{Date table sorting|200}} AD

|-

|[[Roman Empire]]

|4.4

|{{Date table sorting|250}}–{{Date table sorting|350}}

|-

|[[Sasanian Empire]]

|3.5

|{{Date table sorting|400}}

|-

|[[Hunnic Empire]]

|4.0

|{{Date table sorting|450}}

|-

|[[Sasanian Empire]]

|3.5

|{{Date table sorting|500}}

|-

|[[Göktürk Khaganate]]

|3.0–5.2

|{{Date table sorting|550}}–{{Date table sorting|600}}

|-

|[[Rashidun Caliphate]]

|5.2

|{{Date table sorting|650}}

|-

|[[Umayyad Caliphate]]

|9.0–11.0

|{{Date table sorting|700}}–{{Date table sorting|750}}

|-

|[[Abbasid Caliphate]]

|8.3–11.0

|{{Date table sorting|750}}–{{Date table sorting|800}}

|-

|Tibet

|2.5–4.7

|{{Date table sorting|850}}–{{Date table sorting|950}}

|-

|[[Song dynasty]]

|3.0

|{{Date table sorting|1000}}

|-

|[[Seljuk Empire]]

|3.0–4.0

|{{Date table sorting|1050}}–{{Date table sorting|1100}}

|-

|Tibet

|2.5

|{{Date table sorting|1150}}

|-

|[[Jin dynasty (1115–1234)]]

|2.3

|{{Date table sorting|1200}}

|-

|[[Mongol Empire]]

|18.0–24.0

|{{Date table sorting|1250}}–{{Date table sorting|1300}}

|-

|[[Yuan dynasty]]

|11.0

|{{Date table sorting|1350}}

|-

|[[Timurid Empire]]

|4.0

|{{Date table sorting|1400}}

|-

|[[Ming dynasty]]

|4.7–6.5

|{{Date table sorting|1450}}–{{Date table sorting|1500}}

|-

|[[Ottoman Empire]]

|4.3

|{{Date table sorting|1550}}

|-

|[[Tsardom of Russia]]

|6.0–12.0

|{{Date table sorting|1600}}–{{Date table sorting|1700}}

|-

|[[Russian Empire]]

|14.0–17.0

|{{Date table sorting|1750}}–{{Date table sorting|1800}}

|-

|[[British Empire]]

|23.0–34.0

|{{Date table sorting|1850}}–{{Date table sorting|1925}}

|-

|[[Soviet Union]]

|22.5

|{{Date table sorting|1950}}–{{Date table sorting|1975}}

|-

|}

 

[[File:The Harmsworth atlas and Gazetter 1908 (135853022).jpg|thumb|right|The home and colonial populations of the world's empires in 1908, as given by ''The Harmsworth Atlas and Gazetteer'']]

Because of the trend of increasing world population over time, absolute population figures are for some purposes less relevant for comparison between different empires than their respective shares of the world population at the time.<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Scheidel|first1=Walter|title=The Oxford World History of Empire: Volume One: The Imperial Experience|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2020|isbn=978-0-19-977311-4|editor-last=Bang|editor-first=Peter Fibiger|editor-link=Peter Fibiger Bang|location=|pages=102|language=en|chapter=The Scale of Empire: Territory, Population, Distribution|author-link=Walter Scheidel|editor-last2=Bayly|editor-first2=C. A.|editor-link2=Christopher Bayly|editor-last3=Scheidel|editor-first3=Walter|editor-link3=Walter Scheidel|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9mkLEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA102}}</ref> For the majority of the time since roughly 400 BC, the two most populous empires' combined share of the world population has been 30–40%. Most of the time, the most populous empire has been located in China.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Myrdal|first=Janken|title=Ecology and Power: Struggles over Land and Material Resources in the Past, Present and Future|publisher=Routledge|year=2013|isbn=978-1-136-33529-7|editor-last=Hornborg|editor-first=Alf|pages=43|language=en|chapter=Empire: The comparative study of imperialism|editor-last2=Clark|editor-first2=Brett|editor-link2=Brett Clark (sociologist)|editor-last3=Hermele|editor-first3=Kenneth|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dkWqOb82PxgC&pg=PA43}}</ref>

!Empire

!Empire population<br>as percentage of<br>world population<ref name="OxfordPopulation">{{Cite book|last1=Scheidel|first1=Walter|title=The Oxford World History of Empire: Volume One: The Imperial Experience|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2020|isbn=978-0-19-977311-4|editor-last=Bang|editor-first=Peter Fibiger|editor-link=Peter Fibiger Bang|location=|pages=103|language=en|chapter=The Scale of Empire: Territory, Population, Distribution|author-link=Walter Scheidel|editor-last2=Bayly|editor-first2=C. A.|editor-link2=Christopher Bayly|editor-last3=Scheidel|editor-first3=Walter|editor-link3=Walter Scheidel|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9mkLEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA103}}</ref>