Talk:List of largest empires

Second French empire 1920?!

The table shows 1920 for the Second French empire. At that time there was obviously no French empire any more. --Werfur (talk) 19:27, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

What do you mean? France did not decolonize until well after World War II. See French colonial empire. TompaDompa (talk) 20:25, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

@Werfur: Eh? French Indochina? Algeria#French colonization (1830–1962)? French Morocco? --Deepfriedokra (talk) 12:59, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

Empires with sourced areas but without dates

I figured I'd make a section for empires where sources have been found for the maximum extent but with no year specified (meaning they can't be included in the list). My hope is that this will be helpful when people try to locate sources. Feel free to add entries of your own to the list below. TompaDompa (talk) 23:38, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

• Ashanti Empire: 100,000 square miles
• Balhae: 438,000 km²
• Đại Cồ Việt: 110,000 km²
• Durrani Empire: 780,000 square miles/2,000,000 km²
• Dzungar Khanate: 3,600,000 km²
• Nguyễn dynasty: 370,000 km²
• Southern Qi: 2,147,000 km²
• Phoenicia: 250,000 square miles
• Vijayanagara Empire: 360,000 km²
• Wari Empire: 320,000 km²
• Wuhuan: 400,000 km²
• Xianbei state: 4,500,000 km²

References

If you are here because someone asked/sent/recruited you.

• Please see the other declined edit requests.
• Please see WP:SOCK.
• Please see WP:MEAT.
• Please see WP:PROXYING

Thanks, --Deepfriedokra (talk) 12:53, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

Zulu Empire

I am waiting for the explanation why the Zulu empire should be on the list (apart from the source, the Zulu Empire was 30,000 km2, the Tarascan state 75000 km2, the Aztec Empire 220 000 km2 , so something is apparently wrong here...also the mother article should reflect such claims, but given the data drawn from there, either the ordering is false of the list, or the datas....(KIENGIR (talk) 11:13, 11 July 2020 (UTC))

I corrected the figure over at Zulu Empire. As for why it's included, the short answer is that WP:CONSENSUS is that there should be no minimum area for inclusion on the list. To quote myself from a section further up on the talk page, The smallest entries are indeed very small. That's why I introduced a threshold corresponding to a minimum of 2% of the world's total land area back in 2016. See Talk:List of largest empires/Archive 7#Threshold for inclusion, Talk:List of largest empires/Archive 7#The United States, Talk:List of largest empires/Archive 7#Suggest you need substantial restructuring of this article, and Talk:List of largest empires/Archive 8#Reliability of sources for the discussion leading to that threshold being removed. I would be in favour of reintroducing that threshold. TompaDompa (talk) 11:40, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

Empire of Japan

According to the text, Conrad's source does not include Manchukuo's area (1940 area = 1,192,081 km2 (460,265 sq mi)) in the size of the empire. This is consistent with the large range in area between the sources (7.4-8.51 million km2). The source text states "This [figure] excluded an important dimension of Japanese empire building, namely [internal colonialism] as well as Manchukuo, which was formally not a colony but an autonomous state." I was wondering if semi-autonomous states, such as dominions or puppet states like Manchukuo, are included in the total area for this list, as it seems to be the case that the area of dominions are included for the British Empire. Dazaif (talk) 08:19, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

The short answer is that if the sources do, then so do we. Conversely, if the sources don't, then neither do we. TompaDompa (talk) 09:49, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

The portuguese empire size

It would be extremly important to restart the discussions regarding the size of the Portuguese empire here on this page. Taeegepera is wrong in his statment that "effective control over approximately half of Brazil at the time of Brazilian independence in 1822“. His paper references two sources in a table (page 502) but does not provide information on what one of those sources are. There is however plenty of sources that dismiss his statment and prove that the portuguese empire wasn't only 5.5 million km2. I'm using a compilation of sources used by other users in the talk page, I'm putting them all together in order to make things easier. Specially to TompaDompa I urge him to look at every source.

Bethell Leslie Bethell edited a series of books on Brazil, including a book titled "Colonial Brazil". This book contains a translated article titled Instrufies imditas de D. Luis da Cunha a Marco Antonio de A^evedo Coutinho (ed. Pedro de Azevedo and Antonio Baiao, Academia das Sciencias de Lisboa, Coi'mbra, 1930), 218 On page 251 of the book, a map showing the northern and western defensive systems of Amazonia and the Mato Grosso state together with a map of Brazil after the Treaty of Madrid (1750) is shown. The map shows 11 forts along a number of rivers and at the borders of the territory. There are many sources which cite a larger area. For example, ""During the colonial period, from 1500 to 1822, all of Brazil, including Rio, was part of the Portuguese Empire" (section written by Rosana Narbosa Nunes) Melvin Eugene Page; Penny M. Sonnenburg (2003). Colonialism: An International, Social, Cultural, and Political Encyclopedia, Volume 1. ABC-CLIO. p. 501. ISBN 9781576073353.< This source would seem to be discussing the political boundary, since without a doubt in 1500 Portugal only occupied a small portion of Brazil.

Brezinsky A page of Zbigniew Brezinsky on pages 22-23, where there is a table with a list of the largest empires. It cites the Portuguese Empire (1815) 10,400,000 km. Brzezinski is just as reliable as Taagepera. None of them are historians. And Brzezinski also 'mentions history' in his book, same as Taagepera. He may have written about history, but so has Brzenzinski. Neither one of them is a historian and both seem to dwell on similar topics - geopolitics. So I think either source is reliable or unreliable. If one is reliable, so is the other, if one is unreliable, so is the other. Also there is no mystery as to how Bzezinski arrived at his figure (he included Brazil as a whole) so we do not need to ask how it was arrived at.

Harris On page 11 of his book on the 'Cabanagem' insurrection, Mark Harris provides a map of South America in 1799 outlining the borders of Colonial Brazil in this year.

Albuquerque An atlas, which was the official book of the Brazilian Education ministry in 1977, shows economic activity across Brazil in the early colonial, late colonial, and pre republican time. Page 24 relates to the earlier colonial times, page 28 refers to late colonial times. These pages show forestry, cane sugar harvesting, ranching, mining, and the harvesting of plants for herbal remedies (in the Amazon region). Page 32 show these activities during the Brazilian empire time, where the primary economic acitivity in the Amazon region is rubber harvesting. On page 18 there is a mpa highlighting the 'bandeiras' which were organized militias of settlers who set out to expand territory and conquer it for the Portuguese Crown. Most of them left from the São Paulo region. There is an arrow showing how this expansion was also made towards the Amazon. On page 18 there is a map highlighting the forts built and Aldeias settled by the Portuguese along the Amazon river. This argues that the Portuguese did have an economic and military presence beyond the coastal half of Brazil

Mitchell Describes the Brazilian territory in 1844 (unfortunately past the date in which Portugal controlled the country), but says the following which is appropriately sourced, page 281, "Brazil is a very extensive region [...] after being long held as a Portuguese colony, has of late, by peculiar circumstances, been formed into a separate empire.[...] In the interior, this Empire borders on every side upon the former provinces of Spain.[...] The dimensions of this immense range of territory may be taken from about 4º N to 23º S lat. and from about 35º to 73º W lon. This will give about 2500 miles of extreme length, and about the same in extreme breadth. The area of the whole has been estimated at upwards 3,000,000 square miles (note: 3,000,000 square miles give circa 7,800,000 km^2, much closer to the actual value, and completely wrecks the assertion by Taagepera that Brazil "doubled its territory size' by 1900"

Murray, Wallace and Jameson In their work 'The Encyclopædia Of Geography: Comprising A Complete Description Of The Earth, Physical, Statistical, Civil, And Political', Volume 3, published in 1837, only just 12-15 years after Brazil became independent, Murray, Wallace and Jameson, say the same as Mitchell (from which we can conclude Mitchell based himself on them), quoting (page 223)"Brazil is a very extensive region [...] after being long held as a Portuguese colony, has of late, by peculiar circumstances, been formed into a separate empire.[...] In the interior, this Empire borders on every side upon the former provinces of Spain.[...] The dimensions of this immense range of territory may be taken from about 4º N to 23º S lat. and from about 35º to 73º W lon. This will give about 2500 miles of extreme length, and about the same in extreme breadth. The area of the whole has been estimated at upwards 3,000,000 square miles", also, on page 222 (fig. 965) a map is provided. This 1837 encyclopedia discredits Taagepera's values for Portugal and Brazil

Barman Quoting, from page 12: "Portuguese America, as defined by the treaty of San Ildefonso, signed with Spain in 1777, encompassed territories of nearly 3 million square miles"

Pádua Quoting, from page 93: "Unlike the United States, Brazil did not need to expand by way of treaty negotiations or military conquests to obtain an enormous expanse of Territory. The country received as its political inheritance, at least technically speaking, all of Portuguese America, a territory that already encompassed a space that was nearly the country's current size".

Gordon Pinkerton Published in 1807 therefore at a time when the Brazilian territory was still a part of Portugal, and I quote from page 707, "The dominions of South America, held by the small kingdom of Portugal, extend from the frontier at the French Guiana, lat. 1º 30' to port St. Pedro, S. lat 32º, being 33 degrees and a half, or 2000 g. miles: and the breadth, from Cape St. Roque to the furthest Portuguese settlement on the river of Amazons, called Sapatinga, equals, if it do not exceed, that extent*" and the footnote reads: "Da Cunha computes the length of Portuguese possessions, from the river of Pinzon in the North, to the river of San Pedro S at five hundred Portuguese leagues, that is two thousand B. miles, but as there are eighteen Portuguese leagues to the degree, each is not equal, like the Spanish, to four B. miles. He computes the breadth as of the same extent from Cape St Roque to the most western missions" Usually historians prefer contemporary sources to use as primary sources to settle disputes. In this case we have an encyclopedia describing the size of South America that was 'held' by the Kingdom of Portugal. It proceeds to describing the various states, including the State of Grão-Pará and Maranhão.

Bridges In his light reading book 'Man Facts: Fascinating Things Every Bloke Should Know', which provides lists on a huge range of topics, in the History section, Bridges gives the value 10.4 million km^2 for Portugal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mura_people (wikipedia) I know wikipedia is not a source for wikipedia, but there was a war between Portuguese settlers and this people in the 18th century. It is difficult to not accept Portuguese control in this area when faced with facts like these.

Furthermore, The Amazon basin was not unorganized territory. Like said before the Brazilian territory that today is part of the Amazon basin was previously the State of Grão-Pará and Maranhão, and was a self-run polity with capital in the city of Belém. The society was organized: there were missions (Jesuits, Franciscans and Dominicans), that spread around the Amazon basin and created what is still today called the 'Aldeias' where Portuguese missionaries lived together with Christianized natives. The Portuguese military also built many forts along the river to secure those areas and founded several cities. Funilly enough, most of this cities actually correspond to the names of Portuguese cities (Santarém, Obidos, Alenquer, etc.), the only area of Brazil where it is so. Here is some examples of cities in the Amazon basin which were founded in colonial Brazil:

Barcelos,_Amazonas (founded 1758) Santarém,_Pará (founded 1661) Alenquer,_Pará (founded 1758) Borba,_Amazonas (founded 1728) São_Paulo_de_Olivença (founded 1689) São_Gabriel_da_Cachoeira (founded 1668)

Ant here is a list of forts built around the Border of colonial Brazil as defined by the Treaty of Santo Ildefonso, and described in the book Colonial Brazil by Leslie Bethell, Bethell, Leslie (1987). Colonial Brazil (PDF). Cambridge England: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521341271.</ref>:

Fort_Macapá Fort_Gurupá Fort_Tapajós Fort_Óbidos Fort_São_José_do_Rio_Negro Fort_São_Joaquim Fort_São_José_das_Marabitanas Fort_São_Gabriel_da_Cachoeira Fort_São_Francisco_Xavier_de_Itabatinga Fort_Bragança Fort_Príncipe_da_Beira So as you can see, this is clearly not undefined territory. The ihnabitants of this area were subjects of the Crown of Portugal, and later of the Crown of Brazil, and are today part of the Federation of Brazilian States.

It is not true that the Amazon was unhinhabited in 1822, or that this area was only colonized during the rubber boom. Furthermore I'd like to clarify that there was already an economy in this region in colonial times. As you can see in the historical Atlas which was the official book of the Brazilian Education ministry in 1977 Albuquerque, Manuel Maurício de (1977). Atlas histórico-escolar do Ministério da Educação (in Portuguese) (PDF). Rio de Janeiro: Ministério da Educação do Brasil (Brazilian Education Ministry). p. 161., page 24 of this book. Map on page 24 refers to the main source of income of these regions in the 18th century whereas the other one refers to the major source in the 19th century during the period of the Brazilian Empire(1822-1889). And yes the pink in the former refers to 'drugs', plants that were used by botanist to produce remedies, etc. and in the latter it refers to rubber. On page 20 you have another map showing the main source of income in the 17th century also highlighting the Amazon basin. On page 18 you have a mpa highlighting the 'bandeiras' which were organized militias of settlers who set out to expand territory and conquer it for the Portuguese Crown. Most of the left from the São Paulo region. There is an arrow showing how this expansion was also made towards the Amazon. On page 18 you have a map highlighting the forts built and Aldeias settled by the Portuguese along the Amazon river. It is in fact more comprehensive that Bethell.

And then we have the official documents from the treaties: The first source: "...this first edition of the famous Treaty of Madrid is rare and sought after. All the essential documents for the study of the question of Brazil's frontiers are assembled in one volume."(Moraes):https://archive.org/details/tratadodelimites00port/page/n6/mode/1up The second source: "Manuscript copy of the Treaty of Madrid between John V of Portugal and Ferdinand VI of Spain, signed on January 13, 1750, which sought to establish new borders between the South American possessions of the Portuguese and Spanish Empires, granting much of modern-day Brazil to Portugal. Presumably a copy of only the Portuguese text of the treaty which was printed by Joseph da Costa Coimbra in Lisbon in 1750 which had both the Spanish and Portuguese texts of the treaty":https://archive.org/details/tratadodelimites00port_0/page/n5/mode/1up The third source:(google translated) "This book shows a background on the problem of the boundaries between Spanish America and Portuguese America. The problem already begins in Tordesillas, the landmarks were set based on knowledge of geography and astronomy that was not very precise (the terms of the treatment were vague and indefinite, as the lands were yet to be discovered). Some problem that happened during the Iberian Union (1580 to 1640): treaty treated dead letter, poisoned, with a confusion, a Spain became as much of the eastern part, as of the lands in the western part of the meridian of Tordesillas. From 1640, Portugal and Spain went through violent wars, which can be resolved in 1750, in Madrid, where the limits were definitively registered, by the principle of possible use. With the performance of diplomat Alexandre de Gusmão, a trusted man of the Marquis of Pombal, the territory of Portuguese America has been expanded 3 times since the original size established in Tordesillas, defining the geographical contours of Brazil today":https://archive.org/details/AlexandreDeGusmaoEOTratadoDe1750/page/n2/mode/1up

What should be done in this case, in my opinion would be: Either remove the value of 5.5 million km2 completely or replace it with the value of 10.4 million km2. it is strange that the value of 5.5 million km2 still prevails here. This shows that something is not right and this page is managed by a handful of users. BestaMontalegre (talk) 15:28, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

References

Delete or change the 5.5 million km2 land area of the portuguese empire in this list

Reaching a consensus should be with more people and not with just the TompaDompa user. It seems that this person thinks that this page belongs to him. Quote: "No one, no matter how skilled, or how high-standing in the community, has the right to act as though they are the owner of a particular page" The section I wrote above states that the value of 5.5 million km2 of the portuguese empire in 1815 has to be withdrawn in order to improve this page. BestaMontalegre (talk) 11:57, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

 Not done: Creating more sockpuppets does not make you "more people". Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Roqui15. Cabayi (talk) 13:09, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Do you think I'm doing this to harm wikipedia? No. I'm doing this because I want to help wikipedia. Do you want to be responsible for spreading false information for 4000 people every day (this page views). By the way I only used 2 accounts in this discussion which was Roqui15 and this one. I never used RoquePedro for this and Ralf302 is my friend and 109.48.210.93 is my cousin.

TompaDompa Ishan87 Britishfinance Alcaios 2A01:4B00:F613:4600:F95B:72DD:7C36:7DF Ralf302 EloctPT Ygglow Work permit Wikaviani Ppteles Empirecoins Simonm223 Fiztea Edmundo Soares Ricardo S1978 FOARP2001:8A0:FF84:8E01:4943:1C5D:CB3E:99E4 87.196.80.152 All of these are different people as far as I know. I will obviously be blocked once again, but so TompaDompa should. He is acting like he owns this page, which is not allowed. And furthermore you two won the battle but you won't win the war. I will do everything to protect the history of my country, we portuguese won't allow this to happen. As you can see here I posted on reddit explaining what's happening and what TompaDompa is doing. https://www.reddit.com/r/portugal/comments/hrxgyk/na_wikip%C3%A9dia_inglesa_dizem_que_o_imp%C3%A9rio/ I will publish this everywhere if needed. This obviously won't stop here. BestaMontalegre (talk) 14:09, 21 August 2020 (UTC)