Talk:List of largest empires

This article was nominated for deletion on 4/7/2006. The result of the discussion was keep.

This article was nominated for deletion on 06 January 2006. The result of the discussion was keep. An archived record of this discussion can be found here.

Rename and Change (Important)

I propose that we change this to "List of Largest Soverign States". Right now we have data from the US as of 1942 when it was a supposed "empire", but not data from today when it is not an "empire". We have data from the Ming/Tang period of China, but not from modern China. By what criterea do we include 1942 United States and ancient China, but not modern US and modern China.

This change would make things much more clear-cut. The lists would be less arbitrary and more meaningful.

I will make this change if there seems to be a consusus to do so, or if no one complains. Kitplane01 (talk) 05:57, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

This really needs to be done. There is no particular reason to make a distinction between any definition of "empire" and sovereign state that serves any apparent purpose or has any relevance to the purpose of comparison of size. I would favour "List of largest empires and states" as a more conservative renaming.Zebulin (talk) 07:44, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

I'd support a move to List of largest empires and states - it would end arguments about whether to include the US etc.Dejvid (talk) 00:50, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Spanish Empire

WITH ALL MY RESPECTS TO THE IMPORTANT EMPIRES EXISTING IN ALL AGES. CONSIDERING SPECIALLY BRITISH AND RUSSIAN (AMERICAN IS NOT INCLUDED INDEED) THE LARGEST EMPIRE IN HISTORY WAS THE SPANISH EMPIRE UNDER THE REIGN OF PHILIP II OF SPAIN AND I OF PORTUGAL. HAVING JOINT PORTUGAL AND ITS COLONIES (END OF THE 16THC AND EARLY 17THC). PLEASE, CONSIDER REVISION...

Why do you think this? Could you provide some numbers to back this up? It is not the largest in population, arrea, or GDP, so what do you mean?

American GDP discrepencies

American empire is stated as having "($1,644.8 billion[29] out of $4,699 billion[30] in 1945)" in percentage of world GDP, why then does it not figure at all on the total GDP standings? 82.34.137.65 14:05, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Some contradictions

How could one have 'Arab Empire' then 'Nazi German Empire' then 'Qing Empire'? Qing is part of China, Arabia had seperate caliphates, and the Nazi's where a German political party. 195.252.123.2 16:44, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't know about the others, but Qing is the name of the dynasty ruling the Chinese empire at that time, and not a part of China.--Jihinotenshi 23:14, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Qing mentioned here ruled as Manchu,regarded by Chinese as foreigners;whole area surrounding Vladivostok/Sachalin was ruled by them, as well as Mongolia larger than today's republic, and nearly half of Kasachstan,also Kirgistan etc., so Qing is correctly named.User:kailas007,28.08.2008

I don't understand why historical Chinese dynasties have been regarded as empires but Modern China is not included. Modern China is far larger and far more ethnically diverse than the Tang Dynasty ever was. Modern China is fairly similar to the size it was under the Qing Dynasty (the major land difference would be the independence of Mongolia). The central power still exerts dominion over culturally and ethnically diverse groups (eg. in Tibet, Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia). China would probably be just as ethnically diverse as the Ottoman empire was. Also Russian Federation probably should be considered an empire because the central power also exerts dominion over diverse ethnic groups, just not to the same extent as the Soviet Union did.User:unknown

Have to agree with criticism above, but then ALL larger modern countries are not homogenous, so Brazil,Mexico, USA, Canada, India, Sudan etc. etc. would have to be named. I guess this would have changed the impression of the feats of those "rulers of days gone", who unified these large territories without that modern machinery,telecommunications etc. as the countries in the last 150 years. Also, would be interesting to note sphere of influence of the Soviet Union, would have been the largest empire with half the world in its grip around 1980. My critique: Why Korea?Per definitionem it never dominated foreign people, atleast not the way given here (Koryo could have been counted).The borders given by hyperlink to the Korean Empire show it should have been excluded. User: kailas007,28.08.2008

When?

We should have times for all the empires when they reached peak area --Perfection 21:03, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Empire by % of the World's Population? (Polite Request)

Hi there, I'm an anonymous Wikipedia reader. I was extremely curious about which empire held the greatest number of people. Not as an absolute number, but as a proportion of the world's total population. For example, the British empire had 500 million people, but the population of the earth at the time was almost 2 billion. On the other hand, the Roman Empire was estimated from 55 million to 120 million, at a time when there were maybe but a few hundred million people alive.

Perhaps the population records back in the ancient times are too spotty to be able to form any conclusive results. But I know as a reader, I would really appreciate a section that even discusses who MIGHT have held the greatest percentage of the world's population. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.95.156.225 (talk • contribs) 13:19, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

I really like this idea. But I dont know how fiesable it is. -- UKPhoenix79 22:20, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

--

I have to disagree with anyone who says he/she can prove the percentage of population an empire had. Data on worldwide population (including the Americas, Southern Africa...) in any time cannot be 100% right, and as old as you get as far as history goes, the percentage drops. Maybe the Akkadian Empire, for instance, once had 70% of the world population. But who can corroborate that? Maybe the Roman Empire had even a higher percentage of world population. But do we have the data to make such assumption? No.

Even if we're talking estimatives, we wouldnt have data enough. The 'Percentage of Humanity' quest is foolish. We will never know for sure. And might not for hundreds of years. A 'good enough' conclusion cannot be attained with what we know now. Actually, the only claim I think we can make using this statistic is that the Chinese Empire was the largest, since (and I'm guessing this, since the statistics for this are hard to get) it might have had about 250 million inhabitants around 1900 (China had 562,000,000 in 1950). It corresponds to around 15% at the same time. I believe it's tough to beat that. But then again, we'll never know. -- random_caring_user

Japanese Empire

I'm somewhat wary of listing the Japanese Empire by the fullest extent of Japanese controlled territory during World War II, considering that it was so short lived and never really consolidated (at least not all of it)... Japan, the territory won from Russia, Korea, Formusa, and certain Chinese territories held certainly qualify, though. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 155.97.15.150 (talk • contribs) 00:14, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Soviet and Russian

Both the Soviet Union and the Russian Empire are being described with 22.4 million km². This cannot be true, because the territory of the Russian Empire was larger. It additionally contained Poland, Alaska, Finland, Manchuria and north-eastern Turkey. Both empires were different states and should be listed separately. Voyevoda 14:36, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

If you apply the same rules used to define the American Empire (possesses sovereignty over territories which it has not annexed as states) the whole Warsaw Pact and/or Comecon should be considered as the Soviet Empire. Which would give a new entry of: 23,424,197 km² in 1961, for the Warsaw Pact, 25.4 million km² between 1975-79 for Comecon, and 26.1 million km² between 1979-1989 for Comecon (including Afganistan).

Where are the Soviet Union in the list? They should be added.

Definition has been added

In view of the definition , we can now rework the list accurately and break out the pieces that do not belong or add those that do belong--CltFn 13:01, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Sizes

I just wanted to pinpoint the sizes of the empires and how the empires get judged in one way or another and whether we have same understanding of empires between like British and Mongol Empires per se. Just want to get discussion and clarification going in the article so that people can have little better understanding about the sizes of these empires and how they are understood. Thanks. 71.196.154.224 04:24, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

The source listed states that the British Empire was larger than the Mongol Empire. Also, if someone added the area to the Mongol Empire they felt that the source left out, they would also have to do so for the British Empire, whose height was actually in 1919 before the claim to Afghanistan was finally dropped and the British army removed because the leader of the Britihs puppet government was assassinated. Arthur Wellesley 20:43, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

The whole point of arguing British Empire controlling the northern america, above canada greenland and all that bullshit is just sounds funny to me and you know it. They will do anything and everything to sound like ubermensch. Sorry. This whole history is English, German, American based. 24.9.78.176 01:49, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

The British Empire was the largest in history. This is not a contested or controversial fact . siarach 09:45, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Give me the source and it is contested and controversial fact. 24.9.78.176 13:54, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Well the main source for this article had been provided - but you know that already as you actually deleted it to accomodate your own completely unsupported view. There is absolutely no controversy over this issue, the British Empire was the largest ever seen and no amount of vandalism/unsourced POV edits on your part placing the Mongol Empire erroneously in the first position will change this fact. You can revert back to your preferred version as much as you like but youl simply get yourself banned. siarach 14:07, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Show me the paper. Talk is cheap. "the main source for this article had been provided."? Where is it? Give it to me, and maybe you want to look at books not webpage too. 24.9.78.176 04:31, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

This is hilarious. The source has been provided - it had been there in the reference section before you deleted it in the first place and it backs up the orthodoxy that the British Empire was the largest in history. You provide nothing whatsoever to backup your completely novel and unorthodox views regarding the extent of the Mongol Empire. siarach 15:53, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Hi guys! Before you make any edit please note that, as I've said before <see below>, the 33,152,000 sq.km figure provided by the reference of Hostkingdom.net is not the greatest extent. It clearly states that its from the period 1238-1268 A.D., but as common knowledge, until the year of 1279 when Kubilai unified China finally, Southern Sung's realm, which formed a large portion of South China, was territorially independent of the Mongol/Yuan Empire. Also, the exact size of the northernmost Lingbei Province of the Yuan State was unknown...

But the british did not have direct control of many parts of their empire, much was actually own states and nations, this makes them smaller.

I have to agree to this. If by 'empire' one means area of influence, perhaps the Soviet Union was the largest ever (since it consisted of most of Asia, half of Europe, Indochina and Central America countries). The Soviet Union, however, is NOT an empire.

However, the conclusion of weather some territory is an area of influence and should not be considered part of the empire is not easy to achieve. One could argue that the Roman Empire, for instance, did not have actual power (whatever that may be -- which is another point of arguement) over some parts of the land it owned.

So, given all the variables we must consider, it is not a fair fight. As you can see, the British Empire is given credit for Greenland, India and what-not. This means that after WWI (and before) it 'received' territory which was not actually fought for, and is automatically creditted the whole country's territory.

Meanwhile the Mongol Empire or Egyptian Empire (the discrepancy in sampling is intentional), gained most of its territory by military conquests (I say most because it's foolish to think that territorial agreements did not occur in the most ancients of times, but given the fact that India is a very large country, the small portions of land earned by agreements by the Mongol Empire, for instance, is not worth considering).

These are some of my thoughts in the matter. It is not, in any way, some foolish attempt to undermine the British Empire (I simply directed my examples at it because it is easier to examplify). However, if we are looking for a true account of the facts, I believe such a list is irrelevant and outright stupid, for no one will take in account every single variable and 'buts'. Those who might have the knowledge to do a list such as this and might be fair in their choice (historians), will discard it as unimportant.

Does anyone has Southern Sung's figure? 219.79.29.47 16:30, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

• The Ottoman Empire was controlling an era of 20 million km² at the peak of its power. Why the article argues that it was 6.3 million km²? Deliogul 21:57, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Ancient Empires and German Empire

Under largest empires, the German empire is included, but it was no bigger than Germany and half of Western poland. Is this a reference to the territories controlled by Germany (at its largest) during WWII? If so, that should be specified.

It appears to me that the figures you used in measuring the Nazi German empire reflect only Germany and their territories gained prior to the invasion of Poland. For example, in population size the date given is 1938. It seems that only the territories considered by the Nazi's to be Germany were included. Shouldn't the empire include the conquered and occupied territories (ie France, Denmark, Norway, Poland, Ukraine, etc)? This would largely increase the size and population. I understand not including some parts of Russia that were in their control briefly, but many of these places were occupied for 3-4 years and under the administrative rule of the Nazi system.

As for Ancient empires, the smallest ones on the list are noted at about 1 million km^2. I do not know the exact figures, but considering that Aksum at its greatest extent included Northern Ethiopia, Eritrea, Northern Somalia, Northern Sudan (probably Khartoum and more north, from the nile to the Red sea), Yemen, and the parts of modern day Egypt under Meroitic control (i.e. up until the Roman border), it probably deserves inclusion. I'm not sure how this would be referenced, though. It seems as if it would be WP:OR to calculate a general estimate, and I'm not sure if anyone has ever done so before.

Yom 03:04, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

I think the German Empire was meant to be under Nazi Germany which was indeed huge rather than smaller German Empire of Bismarck. Tombseye 18:09, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Although larger under the Nazi Warmachine, the German Empire did have a overseas empire. One could also put in the Habsburg's empire under charles Quint as a member of the List of largest empires.Dryzen 13:42, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Arab Empire - naming dispute

We have here a naming problem. Which name should we use for this Arab political adminstred area, which extended from southern france to the borders of china:

• 1. Islamic Empire
• 2. Islamic Caliphate
• 3. Ummayed caliphate
• 4. Arab Caliphate
• 5. Arab Empire

1) is inaccurate, since there were many islamic empires, like the Ottoman empire, Seljuq Empire, Ghaznavid Empire, etc. 2) is also inaccurate, for the same reasons as 1, and because that could also mean the Ottoman empire, and many other ruleres of empires that claimed the titel of caliph. 3) is wrong. The Ummayeds was a name of an Arab dynasry, not an empire. If we look at the list we find, Persian Empire is mentioned not Achaemenid dynasty; Chinese Empire is mentioned not Qing Dynasty; 4) is also inaccurate. If we called it Arab caliphate, then we have to say also Ottoman caliphate not ottoman empire, since the head of state of the ottoman empire was also called caliph. Whether the head of state is called caliph, king, casear, or clown, a one political unit composed of a number of territories, peoples, or nations which is ruled by a single supreme authority, deserves the name empire.

Therefore, I think the most accuarate,correct, and non-relgious term is Arab Empire. jidan 23:33, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Umayyad Caliphate is academically correct since Arab Caliphate or Empire technically could mean Umayyad or Abbasid Caliphates. Abbasids never held as much territory as Umayyads, and they were somewhat Persian in character. Read this: "The overwhelming majority of foreigners who rallied to the Hashimiyya cause were Iranian. Historians have argued that the 'Abassid caliphate represented a shift in Islam from Semitic to Iranian culture; other historians argue that there really no such shift. The truth probably lies somewhere in between. When the 'Abassids took power, the center of Islamic culture shifted from the Semitic world in Arabia and Syria to the Iranian or Persian world in Iraq. By shifting the capital from Damascus to Baghdad, the 'Abassids brought about a dynamic fusion of Persian and Semitic culture." --ManiF 04:14, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps a combinative approach could work as well such as Arab Umayyad Caliphate. Prof. Lapidus of UC Berkeley describes the empire as the Arab-Muslim Empire while designating the time-lines that correspond to their greatest extent that correspond with the various dynasties, while Arab Empire is used in my Atlas of World History. Since the answers vary so much, there might not be any one single right answer, but I would suggest that the term Arab be included in some capacity. Tombseye 16:02, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Ok. This should do it

Arab Empire - 13.2 million km² (under the Umayyad Caliph Al-Walid I)

jidan 16:18, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

That's okay by me. Tombseye 16:45, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

The naming issue aside, where is this 13.2 million kilometer figure coming from? Is there a source? --ManiF 16:57, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Here [1] jidan 17:21, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

In order to avoid ambiguity would it not be better to avoid general names like arab empire, chinese empire etc. , we ought to be more specific in the labels used for the empires and say the Umayyad Caliphate and apply this naming convention to all other empires as well. Thus rather than using the label of the Chinese empire , we should say the Qing Dynasty empire or whatever term most accurately describes this empire. This would be certainly more helpful than generalizations which could be misleading. Furthermore some general names like Arab empire do not accurately portray the ethnic compositions of those empire--CltFn 03:20, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree, dynasty names should be used to be more specific when refering to an empire. For instance, the Umayyad Caliphate was much larger than the Abbasids, and the Achaemenid Empire of Persia cannot be compared with the Timurid Empire of much later. Furthermore the name Ottoman Empire refers to the singular Osmanli Dynasty, not the "Turkish Empire". The term Ottoman Caliphate cannot be used either because no Sultan made great use of the title Caliph and solely went by Sultan. Thus I think Umayyad Empire/Caliphate is the best name.

Disparity with Macedonian Empire and Persian Empires

The conquests of Alexander basically led to the conquest of all of the Persian Empire and added a few territories further to the east and, of course, Greece and Macedonia, which would make his empire the largest of the ancient world rather than the Achaemenid. Tombseye 16:04, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

True, I will change it. jidan 16:23, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

That's incorrect, Persian Empire under Darius the Great was larger than Alexander's Empire. Persian Empire had significantly shrunk in size by the time of Darius II and Alexander's conquest. --ManiF 16:27, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Totally incorrect. How can the Achaemenid empire be 7.5 million and the Macodonian empire, which even included all area ruled by the Achamenid empire and even added more, be only 5.4 million?.The Empire Alexander created was the greatest empire at his time, look at Britanica [2] jidan 16:40, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

How? Read what I said again, Persian Empire had significantly shrunk in size by the time of Darius II and Alexander's conquest. If you have a source that states Alexander's empire was larger than 7.5 million kilometer the go ahead and change it. --ManiF 16:45, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, the Empire of Darius has the distinction of being the world's first vast multinational empire and it spanned from Egypt to the area north of Sogdia and included the western Punjab in the east as well as the areas up to the Caucasus and also Thrace and Macedonia. Now Alexander's empire took in all of this area and then added a small portion east of the Indus and all of Greece, Macedonia, and Thrace making it somewhat bigger as Darius and the Persians had never conquered Greece and had not crossed into the eastern Punjab either. Tombseye 16:44, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Tom, you are confusing Darius I with Darius II. Darius II's empire, which was annexed by Alexander, was much smaller in size than than Darius I's empire. --ManiF 16:46, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Not at all. Darius I's empire tried to expand into the areas of the Scythians and failed for example. I have it right here in front of me in the Oxford History of the Classical World and my Atlas of World History which both designate the empire of Darius I in the terms I described. I can name all the satrapies as well if that will help. Alexander's empire slightly expanded this earlier vast expanse. Tombseye 16:50, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

So how many kilometers was Alexander's empire? Here is a map of Darius I's empire --ManiF 16:55, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, interesting question as there is a bit of problem there. This article seems to use this website: To Rule the Earth... which claims that Alexander's empire was significantly smaller by 400,000 sq. km which is interesting. The only thing I can think of that may account for such a huge disparity would be the area of Turkmenistan, which Encyclopedia Americana claims to have been conquered by Alexander past Merv or Antiocheia. The other areas include border regions such as Arabia (extreme north) and Kushiya or Ethiopia. I can't figure out exactly how this website got such a large difference between the Achaemenids and Alexander's empires. Also, the Empire of Darius seems to vary as your map shows conquests that include areas north of the Oxus along the Caspian, while others show that Darius did not venture past this area. [3] Very strange.

Tombseye 17:17, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

I looked at this site too [4], very strange indeed. jidan 17:20, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Oh I know what might make the difference. Chorasmia was a satrap of the Achaemenids, while Alexander decided to allow them to remain independent and did not annex the area. Still 400,000 seems a lot, but perhaps this where the differential comes from. Still though, including Illyria and Greece and the eastern Punjab it should be about even, but perhaps that's where the difference comes from. Tombseye 17:22, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

As I said before, from what I know and remember of my high school history classes back in the days, Alexander's entire territory was smaller than that of the Persian Empire at its greatest extent centuries before Alexander. --ManiF 17:30, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Here is another map of Persian Empire at its greatest extent, it includes Chorasmia, Oxus and areas beyond. --ManiF 17:35, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, yes I see and it includes the large area of Chorasmia. However, Greece, Cyprus, and Illyria should make the difference much smaller than 400,000 sq. km. which is practically the size of modern Turkmenistan. Oh well, not enough data for me to continue with this and it seems pretty trivial. Just leave it as is. Cheers. Tombseye 17:42, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Tom, I think have an atlas somewhere with data on the exact size of each historic Empire, I will look this up later and if Alexander's empire was indeed larger, I will adjust the numbers accordingly. Cheers. --ManiF 17:50, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

It will be great if you tell us what is written there regarding the sizes of all empires not just the persian and macadonian. cheersjidan 17:59, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that would be fine Mani. It may be the case that the Achaemenid empire at its height was indeed bigger given the exclusion of Chorasmia in Alexander's empire. As Jidan said though, it might be good to get other figures as well just to compare to the website. Thanks. Tombseye 18:06, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Not to be rude, but you're wrong. Alexander's empire was indeed larger than any Persian king before it. The Persian Empire did not 'significantly shrink' from Darius I to the III (it was the III who was defeated by Alexander, not II). Darius I had conquered parts of Thrace during the first Persian Invasion of 490 BC, which had been re-taken by Philip II, and parts of India, both of which were lost by the time of Darius III, but this is hardly 'significant.' Besides which, Alexander took control of both of those regions and had added Greece and Albania to the empire, as well as adding some territory of the Massagetae to the north of Iran, which the Persians never conquered.

I don't know where you're getting your info regarding 'maps' and square milage, but it is incorrect. Any Alexander source (Dodge, Wilcken, Green, Cartledge, etc.) will confirm this fact. That's the entire point of Alexander studies, how he had conquered MORE territory than the Persians.

Naming Convention: Chinese Empire vs. Ming Empire

It seems rather odd to include both of these on the list, as the Ming Empire was Chinese (whereas, ironically, the "Chinese Empire" referred to is the Qing Dynasty, which was actually Manchurian.) Suggest either altering the list so that the Chinese empire isn't counted twice under different dynasties, or change "Chinese Empire" to "Manchu Empire" or some such. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 160.39.113.156 (talk • contribs) 06:00, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

The Qing Empire is more traditionally called the "Chinese Empire" before it collapsed, even though its official name is "Qing Empire". Aran|heru|nar 13:39, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Mongol Empire largest in history?

First time ive ever seen it acclaimed as such. Ive never seen it ranked anything other than 2nd to the British Empire before. siarach 21:02, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Someone keeps changing it. It is ridiculous to say that the Mongol Empire was larger and then have an external reference http://www.hostkingdom.net/earthrul.html that comes to a different conclusion. Jooler 02:27, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Look at the facts, look at how British Empire controlled all those shitty islands in northern Canada, the whole of Greenland added to British Empire? Does that sound right? Come on and you know it. Please tell me who occupies all the corners of Greenland, what what is the population like 2,000 This history is English, German and France based 24.9.78.176 01:51, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Don't know if it includes Greenland on that page, but it does say this: The figures exclude the eastern seaboard of the United States, which became independent long before the British colonial expansion of the 19th century.::Yom 03:13, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

User:24.9.78.176s response fills me with confidence in the objective basis of the article. Oh and by English you mean British. siarach 09:07, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

I will provide my source 24.9.78.176 13:56, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Regarding the size of the Mongol Empire, using the 33,152,000 (1238-1268 A.D.) figure from the "hostking.net" link is inappropriate. Its because the Mongol/Yuan Empire didn't unify China until 1279. It means: the Empire's greatest extent was reached only after the 1270s. 219.79.29.47 16:31, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

I dont see how providing a source is innapropriate. If a more reputable source ( which surely shouldnt be too hard to find in all honesty) can be given which contradicts it then excellent but atm the only source ive seen for most of this article is that website and i find it hard to take opposition to it too seriously given when it is based on criticism of the figures given for the Mongol Empire especially given the recent spate of completely unreferenced pro-Mongol POV edits. siarach 16:16, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Referencing

This article really needs to be fully referenced if it is to be taken seriously and especially so given its POV attracting nature - as mentioned in the proposal that it be deleted. siarach 16:13, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

People should remove citation needed link only if they provide primary source of that assertion, without that it is going back to where it was, people claiming this and that without any source to look at. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.196.236.162 (talk • contribs) 08:27, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Largest: Percentage of Humanity > Absolute Size

Comparing the population of the 19th- or 20th century British Empire to that of the 17th Century Manchu Chinese Empire is inappropriate, because of the much large number of human beings on earth during the later period. Indeed, today 2006 both India and China have larger populations than any empire on the list, and Brazil would be number 4! A more meaningful statistic is the percentage of humanity controlled by the empire. rewinn 02:35, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

I think they are both relevant numbers - if you have a good source for the size of the global population along the timeline - please back calculate the % of the population, and add under a seperate heading. Megapixie 02:45, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

I've tried to put together a quick calculation of the population of the most obviously populous empires. Anything less than 20% seemed irrelevent, and difficult to do (even Ancient Egypt supposedly contained no more than 15% of the world's population, from what estimates I could find). These will probably need some cross referencing. My hope is that even if these estimates are rough, that we can attract enough attention to get appropriate source material.

I have to disagree with anyone who says he/she can prove the percentage of population an empire had. Data on worldwide population (including the Americas, Southern Africa...) in any time cannot be 100% right, and as old as you get as far as history goes, the percentage drops. Maybe the Akkadian Empire, for instance, once had 70% of the world population. But who can corroborate that? Maybe the Roman Empire had even a higher percentage of world population. But do we have the data to make such assumption? No.

Even if we're talking estimatives, we wouldnt have data enough. The 'Percentage of Humanity' quest is foolish. We will never know for sure. And might not for hundreds of years. A 'good enough' conclusion cannot be attained with what we know now. Actually, the only claim I think we can make using this statistic is that the Chinese Empire was the largest, since (and I'm guessing this, since the statistics for this are hard to get) it might have had about 250 million inhabitants around 1900 (China had 562,000,000 in 1950). It corresponds to around 15% at the same time. I believe it's tough to beat that. But then again, we'll never know.

Sources

The two main online sources used for this page are:

• East-West Orientation of Historical Empires. Peter Turchin, Jonathan M. Adams, and Thomas D. Hall. University of Connecticut. November 2004.
• List of Largest States and Empires. Bruce R. Gordon. (See Bibliography for sources used by this site.)

Both of these are sourced. However, they both give conflicting figures for many of the empires listed on this page, leading to uncertainty over which source to use for these figures (particularly for the Roman, Macedonian, Arab, Ottoman, Chinese and Mongol empires for example). I think we may need to use our judgement to reach a consensus over which figures to use, perhaps on a case-by-case basis. Jagged 11:08, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Negative, the figures are not sourced by specialty from that site (hostkingdoms), the author had left almost zero footnotes to his site and left nothing explain about his figures on the bibliography. Other than earning a few bucks, the site served more like a personal website. Eiorgiomugini 06:58, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Hostkingdom has given numerous sources from where it gathered its data, much like uconn, which also didn't explain any figures. The uconn source has a few odd figures, such as the figure for the Mongol Empire, which is considerably smaller than the figures given in hostkingdom and many other sites. It would be better to check those sources cited by these sites. It would also be better to state both figures for some empires if there is some uncertainty. Jagged 08:06, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

"Hostkingdom has given numerous sources from where it gathered its data" No, there's no evidence for that, you had just based upon your assumption, even if all of those sources listed on the page had given a few datas it would be vary, I repeat the author explain almost nothing with regard to ther figures on the bibliography, which is why he left no footnotes on the page, as he had none. If anything, uconn should always be used in preference to other sources, such as hostkingdoms of equal calibre. Eiorgiomugini 05:20, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Here's the endnote of uconn's specialties through measure and datas gathering:

Endnotes:

• Note 1. Our list of large historical states was based on the compilation by Taagepera (1978, 1978,1979, 1997), which has been systematized and posted on the web by Chase-Dunn and co-workers (http://www.irows.ucr.edu/). We checked the Taagepera list with all major historical atlases in the library of the University of Connecticut and found additional eight empires that fitted our criteria (Axum, Hsi-Hsia, Kara-Khitai, Srivijaya, Maurian, Kushan, Gupta, andMaratha). We excluded the maritime empires of the European Great Powers, because our measureof the latitudinal tendency is not applicable to such non contiguous, widely distributed collections of territories. One difficulty in constructing the list was presented by the repeatedrise of empires in the same location, such as in China. We adopted the middle road of countingeach major dynasty (Han,Tang, Ming, etc) as a separate empire, but did not distinguish between cycles within a dynasty (e.g., Early versus Late Han). Analysis of a reduced dataset, which included only the largest empire for each geographic location, yielded qualitatively the sameresult. See Table 1 for the list of empires.
• Note 2. Log-transforming the ratio of distances was necessary to make the distribution of the index symmetric. Positive values indicate east-west orientation, and negative values – north-south orientation.
• Note 3. It may seem strange to call the Chinese home biome a “forest,” because in present-day China, of course, very few forests are left. Remember, however, that the biome names reflect the types of ecological communities that would be present before substantial human impact; the names are simply a short-hand reference to particular combinations of the climate and soil types.

An extract from associates page of hostkingdom:

This page is intended to provide information about who I am, and from whom I get considerable amounts of data from. "We" are not a formal organization as such, merely a group of people, worldwide, interested in the structure underlying historical development. I must in all fairness say that the individuals listed below form only a part of the contacts I have made - there have been many who have solicited material and wish to remain anonymous. That's fine, and I have no problem there - but, if you have assisted this website and wish to be listed, please let me know.
MYSELF Ordinarily, I would not think to place myself here, but I am sometimes asked to supply an author's name for purposes of attribution - that is reasonable: I am Bruce R. Gordon, and I live in the USA, in northeastern Ohio. Any original material is my own (unless otherwise signed), and is copyright 1997-2005 - however, I normally allow free reproduction of the material here, all that I ask is that you contact me beforehand with the details, so that I can help decide how best to provide what is needed - backlinks are always welcome. I can be contacted at obsidian@raex.com (my normal email address) or at bruce.gordon@hostkingdom.net (the address associated with this site - but it is sometimes down). As noted in the cover page, I am an amateur, both as an historiographer and as an internet publisher. Any errors or clumsiness are my own, and can only be corrected or modified if I am alerted to them. Still, there is some method to my madness - this website seeks to present regnal data in a straightforward and easily loadable form. The files herein are not terribly aesthetic, but hopefully they should at least serve to present useful information.

British Empire in 1921 includes Australia and Canada?

The article refers to the British Empire in 1921, and when I look that up, I see it includes Australia and Canada, which by then were already independent. So how can they be counted as part of the empire? DirkvdM 09:11, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Arguably, the British Dominions were not independent until the Statute of Westminster (1931). Prior to that, London still exercised significant control over them. It is, though, a grey area. As to the Mongol Empire, it’s worth noting that it is debatable whether it was still one contiguous nation at the time of Kublai Khan. He was the last Great Khan, but his control over the western areas of the Empire was very weak.

Yeah. If that. Could be said they weren't indpenedant until the 80s.

Dominions are greatly overrated, they were actually 'independant' long before they were made dominions.--Josquius 15:40, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Oh, how so? Is "independent" the same as Independent? If a central power weaves considerable control over you, you're not truly independent. As for the Dominions of Canada, Australia, NZ, etc the British Empire was hardly a "foreign" power, both were still part of that empire. Westminster still had the last word until the "patriation" of the constitution to the local parliament. Autonomy was probably a good way to describe it. Even today the British Monarch still has some considerable constitutional influence over her former dominions. Even though in those areas she is officially known as the Queen of (insert country's name). Akaloc (talk) 05:34, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

This may or may not have any relevance but, regarding Britain as a "foreign power" to Australia, see Sue v Hill (see the case opinions in the infobox and the Arguments section); also discussed here. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 00:51, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Fictional Empire

Should we talk about fictional empire such as Galatic Empire? :) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 151.196.183.2 (talk • contribs) .

No. Megapixie 10:26, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm just glad people didn't get religious. If the "Reign of God" was to be considered an Empire, we would've some serious debate going on. :-)

People don't "get" religious, human beings are religious. Germanicus24

Please, people, read WP:NOTFORUM and WP:TPG. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 23:50, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Hyperlink Question

Any particular reason why the links to Persian Empire on this page do not link to the page on the Persian Empire but to the page about one of its dynasties?

Flash Animation: Imperial History of the Middle East

I have just added a link to a really cool flash animation for the history buffs out there: Imperial History of the Middle East .Check it out and enjoy.--CltFn 05:38, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the cool link! Jidan 22:22, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Qing Empire

In the article it says that the Qing empire was 14.7 million km² without giving ANY source/lin !!??. Jidan 22:22, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Population

I have a bit of a problem with the largest by population stats here- They say the largest is the Qing empire back in 1912 however modern China has twice that. As does India. I guess you say they are not empires because they are not ruled by emperors? But then most of the British empire wasn't and neither were the French or many others. Also why no mention of the USA anywhere?--Josquius 15:37, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Actually, the British and French empires were also ruled by emperors, as were all the other empires mentioned in the article. The US is not recognized as an empire, so there is no point including it. Jagged 85 17:35, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

FYI Britain was not ruled by a emperor. The monarch had the title emperor/empress of India but that didn't apply to the rest.

And the French empire at its greatest extent didn't have any sort of monarch.
The US is just as much a empire as Britain or Russia. --Josquius 14:49, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Monarchs can also be considered emperors but either way, an empire has to be ruled by a monarch or emperor to be classified as an empire. Jagged 85 06:44, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

So the French didn't have a empire by that reasoning aside from a few brief spells.--Josquius 17:49, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

This definition is from the American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language:

em·pire (n): 1. A political unit having an extensive territory or comprising a number of territories or nations and ruled by a single supreme authority. 2. The territory included in such a unit. 3. An extensive enterprise under a unified authority: a publishing empire. Imperial or imperialistic sovereignty, domination, or control: "There is a growing sense that the course of empire is shifting toward the . . . Asians" (James Traub).

Under this definition, the United States of America, the Soviet Union, republican France, and other such nations which came to rule over unassimilated ethnically different populations by conquest can be called empires. Zhek 06:54, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

if so then the largest empire by population is China(1.3b), then India etc.. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.172.29.253 (talk) 04:30, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

GDP

I have deleted the GDP numbers for ancient empires because there are many estimates on each one of them and it is much more complicated to "measure" GDP than land area or population. For example, the GDP per capita of the roman empire has estimates that vary from 400 dollars to 2500 dollars (all then 1990 international dollars) and its population estimates vary from 45 million to 135 million. So its total GDP could be from less than 20 billion dollars to over than 300 billion dollars. Also, calculating the total global GDP is even more complicated (maybe it is simply impossible since we do not have enough information) so I deleted this section.--Rafael G12 12:58, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

GDP estimates for ancient empires may be inaccurate but at least it gives a useful indication of an empire's wealth at the time. Various economic historians have been done enough research on them to at least give a rough estimate for some of the ancient empires. GDP estimates for some of them should at least be presented, as long as the article itself states that they may be inaccurate estimates. Jagged 85 22:23, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

However, there are many different numbers for any ancient empire, with indicate that we do not have estimates that are precise enough to be presented. For example, only for the roman empire we have estimates of its total GDP that vary from 12 billion to 45 billion HS. Them the PPP exchange rate has estimates that vary from 1 HS = 2.3 1990 PPP dollars to 1 HS = 6 dollars. So the total GDP for the roman empire is simply not know, and the roman empire is the ancient empire with we do have the largest amount of research about its social and economic system. We simply do not know the GDP for these ancient empires and all these estimates are just educated guesses that should not be presented in an encyclopedia.--Rafael 16:34, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Are these wealth estimations comparable? - Do they represent total wealth in proportion to all the wealth in the world at that time? If not I think that would be quite nice to see. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.21.227.114 (talk) 17:36, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Why Just Empires?

I don't think I'm speaking for just myself when I say I'm curious how all nations/empires/kingdoms stack up. I think a lot of people come to this page and are confused that some key historic polities are missing. If this doesn't fit in the current article, I nominate that we should create a 'sister article' for this page.

Disqualifying America, China, or India simply because they do not have a despotic rule is just not in the interest of information... the line is drawn quite arbitrarily. I think the article should be expanded to include all political unities, for lack of a better term. America has a tremendous GDP, and China/India are also impressive with their population and rising GDP as well. The former USSR would also have some great stats, I'm sure.

(Sorry all I have to offer is discussion. I'm afraid I lack the research to be able to create this content myself.) 130.179.252.54 05:29, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

You might want to look at List of countries by GDP and List of countries by population. Megapixie 05:33, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

A conversion of the article to a list of largest political units in history would be less arbitrary and more interesting. For a list of empires a comparison of foreign (non core) populations under control of the empire would likely be more meaningful as a measure of the empires imperialism.Zebulin 16:51, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Where are the United States?

United States were also a colonial empire during the times of colonialism. While their status as an empire is quite disputable right now, in early XX century the americans were definately an empire (albeit without monarchy). With respect, Ko Soi IX 20:34, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

As I've said. They said a empire needs a emperor but at their largest point the French didn't have a monarch at all. Britain only had a 'emperor' in a small part of the empire.--Josquius 15:31, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia clearly displays the standard definition of what an empire is on the Empire page. There's simply no reason that the USA would not qualify, at least during the 1898-1946 period when the Phillipines were part of US territory. I will include the 1898-1902/1906-1908 peak: this is basically the current USA territory, plus Cuba and the Phillipines. -- Atarr 18:26, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

I finished the edits to include the American Empire. The land peak is, as I said above, 1898-1902 and 1906-1908, when Cuba was owned. I list it at 10 million km², the same as the Portugese Empire, but the citations actually list Portugal at 10.3 million at its peak, so I slotted America below. For some reason Gordon cites America's occupation of Haiti as its territorial apogee, but clearly Cuba is larger.

The population and economic stats are a little trickier. The population peak is almost surely the day before the Philippines became independent in 1946. However, I can't find accurate data on the Phillippine population then, so the best stats I have are for 1942. I'm also somewhat anachronistically comparing the 1942 American Empire's population to the 1938 world population, although the effective error this causes is probably very small (maybe a tenth of a percentage point). Note that the (1898-1946) US economy peaked in 1944, but relative to the world, it peaked a year later.

If someone wants to clean up my citations, feel free. - Atarr 18:46, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Remove the Brazillian Empire?

In the same vein as adding the American Empire -- why is the "Brazillian Empire" included in this list at all? This appears to be another case of lazily applying the definition "Empires are things with Emperors" (a definition that much of the list fails, by the way), rather than using the accepted scholarly (and wikified) definition. Brazil could never be defined as a central state exerting dominion over a periphery. I propose that the Brazillian Empire be removed from the page. -- Atarr 19:03, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

I cannot vouch for the American Empire be included, but i can for the Brazillian Empire. When the Portuguese crown fled Portugal with Napoleon's invasion, it transfered the power to Brazil. Brazil then became the base of the Portuguese Empire. However, it did not continue to be called Portugues Empire, it was changed to Brazillian Empire (it is actually some fancy name for "The Portuguese Crown and Empire Currently Operating In Brazil, But Since This Is A Humiliating Name We Shall Call It Brazillian Empire"). The power shifted totally from Portugal to Brazil (totally is an arguable matter, but suits our purposes). "Empires are things with Emperors". Brazil did have an Emperor and all the things attached. It was, for a small period of time, an Empire. After independence, Brazil still had a king (but was not an Empire).

If American History has something resambling this, then it can be included. I'm no expert, but i cannot recollect a period in time which the USA had an emperor, or found itself in a situation similar to Brazil's.

So, keep Brazil in, an USA out. The fact that USA was never an empire (also, arguable) is something to be proud of, so don't be hasty to join the club.

Accuracy and fairness?

It would be difficult to compare the Persian Empire with, say, British Empire, because of different methods of calculation. For example, the Persian Empire would have needed a lot of estimations as it is impossible to count every citizen in the Empire in ancient times; while in modern times more advanced methods could be used and the estimation error would be lower. It would also be difficult to categorize an empire in specific aspects so as to make the influence of the empire in contemporary time more obvious - for example, the American Empire is largely a contiguous empire, with most of its landmass in present-day United States - these states are also themselves not an empire at all.Aran|heru|nar 13:59, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Of course estimation error is much higher in ancient times than in modern times. This does make close comparison difficult, but no moreso between ancient and modern than it is between ancient and ancient. (Actually, the comparison is easier, because at least one of the estimates is more reliable.) There's no issue of "fairness" here unless you feel that ancient estimates are consistently slanted one way or the other.

I'm not sure what "It would also be difficult to categorize an empire in specific aspects so as to make the influence of the empire in contemporary time more obvious" is supposed to mean. In response to your specific criticism (if you mean it as a criticism) of the American Empire - it's true that most (about 97%) of the American Empire is part of the current United States, which is not (or at least, not by our definitions) an empire. I have two comments on this:

1) It's more or less irrelevant. Cuba and the Philippines were quite clearly imperial posessions by our definition, and even if they constitute a relatively small part of the the American Empire's size, population, or wealth, they are large, well-populated, and significant in an absolute sense.

2) As far as the contiguous/overseas distinction: at the time, Alaska was merely a federal district, not a state, and it is almost 18% of the area.

I'm not sure that addresses your concerns, but let me know. - Atarr 17:58, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

American Empire GDP percentage in 1944-1945

Jagged 85 has requested a citation backing up the 35% statistic. Well, actually, the 35% statistic is already properly cited (and is available in many other scholarly sources), as is a seperate citation for the American Empire's income in 1944-1945. The world GDP figure currently on the list is found simply by interpolating from these figures.

What is NOT easily available is an independent statistic for the World GDP in this timeframe. A quick totalling of the tables from Maddison for individual regions shows the overall trend in GDP from 1940-1945 to be a downward path in Europe and East Asia, while the USA trends upward. But because the total figure is not updated between 1940 and 1950, and neither are several regions, it's impossible to confirm the world GDP figure using Maddison's data.

Interestingly, Maddison's American Empire income for 1944 and 1945 is larger than the income cited in the Economic History Services page, which is what we are currently using. In fact, if we were to assume flat world GDP from 1940-1945, and rely on the Maddison figures for USA GDP, the American Empire would be over 38% of world GDP in 1945. I wouldn't assume that, of course, but since we are citing Maddison extensively throughout the page, it would make sense to use his numbers for the American Empire's GDP as well. This simply means I will assume some small growth in the overall world GDP over the period, which is consistent with the incomplete data for the 1940s present in the tables.

In conclusion, I intend to take the following actions:

• Update the 1944 and 1945 American Empire numbers to reflect the Maddison numbers; perhaps making a note of alternate statistics available on the Economic History Services page.
• Cite the raw numbers (from Maddison) and the 35% statistic (the other source) seperately, and then note in the estimate of total world GDP that it is only an interpolated statistic. - Atarr 19:59, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Well actually, I realized the 35% figure was cited but wanted to know where the specific American GDP and world GDP figures came from. I'm quite happy with the additions you've made to the article though. Keep up the good work. Jagged 85 00:03, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I figured that. I'm glad you're happy with the changes. More oversight makes for better articles. - Atarr 01:57, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Gupta Empire in Percentage of world population

Going by the data provided in this page we can make the following estimate.

Gupta Empire - 3.5 million km² Maurya Empire - 5 million km²

Both these empire occupied similar area. Therefore, the % of world population should be in the ratio of area occupied. So,

Maurya Empire - 33.3%

Should mean:

Gupta Empire - 3.5/5 * 33.3% = 23.3%

It should place Gupta Empire between Roman Empire and Song Empire.--UB 06:40, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

The problem is that original research is not allowed on Wikipedia. We cannot add any empire to the population list until we have a scholarly estimate of its population from a reliable source or publication. If you can find any such sources for the Gupta Empire, then feel free to add it to the population list along with its cited population estimate. Jagged 85 23:17, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Whatever I have quoted is from this page only. --UB 11:09, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

The statement, "Both these empire occupied similar area. Therefore, the % of world population should be in the ratio of area occupied" is horribly flawed. Population changes over 500 years may not scale uniformly, and to assume so is absurd. Moreover, they didn't opccupy the same area - The Maurya empire was larger. So you're not only assuming uniform population growth, you're assuming uniform population distribution. Both assumptions are bad. - Atarr 18:51, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you that the estimates are not very accurate. But, I would like to bring to your notic the following points.

1. The core of Gupta empire and the Mauryan empire is the same. Mauryan empire extended to present Afghanistan, which has much lower population density.
2. The share of population in Indian subcontinent compared to world population through out recorded history has been about 1/4th
3. At its peak Gupta empire occupied most of Indian subcontinent
4. The figure 23.3% may be worng but Gupta empire defenitely had more that 12.3% (entry no 12 - Spanish empire) of world population --UB 05:15, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

If there is no objection then I will insert Gupta empire as 12th in the % of world population list--UB 12:16, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, I wouldn't object to them being 12th - the range between 11th and 12th is currently so large that we can reasonably assume the Gupta Empure would be there. But I'd object to us attempting to apply any percentage estimate there. If you want to add them, it should be clear that we are not working from any scholarly estimate of population, and are simply slotting them in on the basis of some rough assumptions.

Incidentally, the maps I've seen of the Gupta Empire have never included the Deccan Plateau, which is included in at least some maps of the Mauryan empire. - Atarr 15:19, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

I am ok with that. You are right about Deccan Plateau not being a part of Gupta empire. However, that area would have a lower population density.--UB 11:55, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Harsha and Pala Empire in % of world population

Vijaynagar empire with an area of 360,000 km² appears at 18th position. However, Harsha empire has an area of 1 million km² (almost 3 times the size) and Pala empire has an area of 600,000 km² (almost twice the size). Also the population density of these two empire are likely to be more than Vijaynagar empire because these occupy the most fertile area of India.

So, Harsha empire and Pala empire should find a place before the 18th position.--UB 12:12, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Please provide some historical reference for the actual population figures, both in the world and in the empire, at that time, before including it in the list. The lists here will never be complete, but we should only add material that's actually based on historical research.

Incidentally, would Harsha's empire really fit our definition of what an empire is? I think including this one may start us on the slippery slope, as I mention w.r.t. the "Brazillian Empire". - Atarr 18:30, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Anon bump of Byzantine Empire

Is the anonymous bump of the Byzantine Empire (from 2.7 million km² to 3.5 million km²) consistent with the source cited? If not, we should either revert to the old number or find a new source consistent with the larger number. - Atarr 21:05, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Ottoman Empire only 5.6 million km²??

I thought you take the largest expansion of every empire? Ottoman Empire had it's peak at 1595 with 19.9 million km²! so it would be placed 4th. Please Correct this if it is a mistake. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 85.179.162.65 (talk) 23:07, 24 January 2007 (UTC).

The 5.6 million km² stat is cited. If you want to assert a larger number, provide a historical citation. I've never heard any suggestion of 19.9 million km² - I don't see how you could get such a large number unless you included vast stretches of the Sahara, which is not normally considered part of their empire. - Atarr 04:37, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

please look at ottoman empire page (french and turkish) you will see...

Turkic kaganate

where? please add. 24.218.8.72 02:23, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Second this. Up until the rise of Genghis Khan the Gokturk Empire had been the largest empire in history stretching from almost the Pacific to the Black Sea. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.35.84.36 (talk) 21:04, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Why 1895 Russian Empire? How big in 1867?

It seems we should use the 1867 figure (immediately before the sale of Russia to the United states) in stead. It's going to take a bit of research to figure out exactly how far along Russian conquests in Central Asia were on October 16, 1867 (the last day Alaska was officially administered by Russia).

File:1533-1896.jpg.gif
This image shows the area in question; specifically, we're talking about the teal area in Central Asia (the teal areas in Georgia and the far east were already annexed by 1860, and the orange areas came later). We know that they had captured Tashkent at that point, but not Samarkand or Khiva. At any rate, the total area conquered between 1867 and 1895 is under 1 million square kilometers (after all, the total of all the central asian republics except Khazakhstan is not much more than that). Alaska, by contrast, is over 1.7 million square kilometers. So it's seems clear that Alaska is larger than the portion of Central Asia not yet conquered in October 1867, but by exactly how much? - Atarr 23:34, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

My best estimate is that there was about 800,000 square kilometers of Asian territory conquered by Russia between 1867 and 1895. As such, the Russian Empire was roughly .9 million square kilometers larger in 1867 than 1895. I will make this edit, and note the approximation in a footnote. - Atarr 20:02, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

The Russian Alaska was much bigger than present-day United State's state. Several historic maps I saw shown their influence area reach the Great Slave Lake as well present-day Oregon. I think the data should corrected according.

Napoleonic empire

Why the napoleonic empire is not their?

Because the French empire was larger during at the height of their colonial period, when they controlled most of West Africa. - Atarr 01:34, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Spanish Empire: 1782-1790, or 1592-1621?

Someone correctly edited the current listing to match the reference (Gordon) given - that is, that the Spanish Empire reached its peak under Charles III from 1782-1790, between the capture of the Bahamas and the signing of the Nootka Conventions. That said - is it possible that the Empire actually peaked 200 years earlier, under Philip II and Philip III? Both were the King of Portugal at that time, so the entire Portugese Empire can righfully be included in the Spanish Empire of that time.

It comes down to one major question: Do we credit Spain with holding the Pacific Northwest at this time? It was explicitly claimed under the Treaty of Tordesillas, but it had only questionably been explored as of 1592. Gordon gives Spain credit for this territory in his calculations (circia 1763-1790). The territory was more disputed at that point, but better explored.

If the answer to this question is yes, then the extra territory Spain held at this time (Belgium, Milan, Sardinia, Florida, Portugal, Brazil, coastal Sri Lanka, many other Portugese enclaves in Africa and Asia) outweighs the addition of the Louisiana territory after 1763.

If we do decide to make this change, we need some reference that gives reliable numbers on the size of the Asian/African portions of the Portugese Empire. - Atarr 21:04, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Flaw

Empires should not be classified solely to the landmass or population, rather, the duration. The Mongol Empire lasted a miniscule time compared to the Roman or Ottoman Empires. That determines an empires ability to survive, not just expand briefly militarily, and then fail once the leader dies. Does anyone really think that the landmass acquired by means of invasion supercede the abilty to survive multiple centuries? Oyo321 17:07, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

There is an endless number of rankings, size, length, speed of expansion, population, technological influence. Size is not a flaw, is just one of the many criteria. Benjwong 02:00, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Again, the Chinese Empire would be the first one, by a large margin. I see a pattern here. But it is all arguable, so it doesnt really matter.

when empires last long enough the culture tends to homogenize so that they tend to no longer resemble or even continue to be an empire by the definition used in this article. for example, the byzantine empire lasted a very, very long time but for how much of it's history was it meaningfully an empire?Zebulin 16:56, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Cultural Footprint

I believe we should add an extra category for cultural influence. It could be measured in either how many people or successor states adopted that empire's cultural traits namely language and government styles. just off of my head, the list would include at least the following empires

• Roman Empire (probably the most influential european state EVER)
• British Empire (they've exported the parliamentary system across the globe)
• Mali Empire (3/5 of West Africa was either conquered, colonized or influenced by it)

i'm not very familiar with the rest of the world's imperial forefathers so please help me fill this list. Scott Free 15:10, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Too subjective.--RafaelG 04:43, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Spanish Empire

The largest Spanish Empire was under Philip II of Spain and I of Portugal. The incorporation of the Portuguese empire in 1580 (lost in 1640) hasn´t been taken into account in this article.

. Exatly, check this wikipedia page http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperio_Espa%C3%B1ol and you wil realize that in this page of "largest empires" there are a lot of mistakes.

In different places, the article states that the Spanish Empire is 19 million and 18 square kilometres in size under the same King, Charles III. Is that a mistake?194.125.86.3 (talk) 08:21, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Brazilian Empire

User “Atarr”, on 15.12.06, removed the Brazilian Empire from the list because he understands “it was not an empire in the sense this article explores”.

The Brazilian Empire was a fully independent political entity from 1822 to 1889, with well-defined borders, an Imperial Constitution, centralized political power, codified laws, a reasonably organized bureaucratic administrative structure, and a well-assembled land army. When it ceased to exist in face of the instauration of the republican system, the same basic borderline was maintained, thus being roughly equivalent to current day Brazil in territorial extension.

If inclusion is based on the article definition of “empires” (“an empire is a state that extends dominion over areas and populations distinct culturally and ethnically from the culture/ethnicity at the center of power”), I believe the Brazilian Empire surely meets the requirements.

I don’t see why the list can include the “American Empire” and the “Mexican Empire” but not the “Brazilian Empire”. The “Brazilian Empire” was never a great political powerhouse, but as far as I understand that’s not one of the requirements.

I will wait for other users to present their views on the matter, and will reintroduce the Brazilian Empire to the list if no one brings new arguments in the next few days.

Sparks1979 03:16, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

My view is Brazilian Empire was simply a neme given to a compact and ordinary state, thus not an empire 193.253.199.143 23:31, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Guys, I'm brazilian. The Brazilian Empire did exist, we study it at school and it's in every single history book (by the way, there's a whole english wikipedia article about it). It was somewhat different from other modern empires in the way that it was not a colonial empire like the european ones, nor like the medieval-born empires such as the ottoman, and that causes a kind of confusion, so people tend to (mistankenly) think it was not a real empire. Here's the deal: after independence from Portugal, Brazil had a centralized power over a large land extension, and it was a monarchy with hereditary right and everything. There was imposed culture, language and religion over multi-ethnic people, mainly the amerindians, but also african descendents and others. It had land borders issues, especially with Argentina and Paraguay, and it anexed Cisplatina (modern-day Uruguay) from 1821 to 1825. You probably think it's weird because you don't study our history and may have never heard of it, but it actually existed as any other empire. For instance, I had never heard of the Mughal Empire before I read this article, because I don't know much of Indian history, but I can't just deny its existance. Same with the Brazilian Empire, it was real and that's simply a fact, it's not about agreeing with that or not. It's true, though, that it didn't conquer too much and it wasn't a powerhouse (as someone said before), but there are many other empires like that (especially in Asia and Africa), and they are still empires after all. If you still doubt that Brazil was an empire, just see the legacy: Brazil is nowadays the only portuguese-speaking country in Latin America, but is the largest country of this region in both size and population. That is somewhat different from the Hispanic America, which was split in a lot of different countries, because they didn't have a centralized imperial power like the one in Brazil (Mexico did have an empire, but it was short-lived). Hope you understand it, and sorry for the bad english :) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.172.195.49 (talk) 19:53, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Bourbonic empire

Why the bourbonic is not their? because they have a large territory with Louis 14 and Philip 5

Bulgarian empire

I think Bulgaria has its deserved place here. In its best times it comprised almost the whole Balkan Peninsula (the European part of Bizantium), most parts of present-day Romania and Moldova, Bessarabia in Ukraine and about half of present-day Hungary.

Which version of American Empire is being used to derive statistics?

There are two interpretations of American Empire:

• The United States during the period in which it officially and/or actually pursued a foreign policy of colonialism in competition with European empires.
• The United States in its current state of economic hegemony.

The former is a valid listing that adheres to the definition of Empire in this article. The latter is a subjective interpretation open to ideological and philosophical discussion, but falls outside of the technical definition.

I am very curious as to which American "Empire" is being described in the figures for greatest territorial extent.

Clearly, only the territories annexed/occupied and/or otherwise falling under US political sovereignty should contribute to said figure.--Supersexyspacemonkey 07:54, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

I think The United States during the period in which it officially and/or actually pursued a foreign policy of colonialism in competition with European empires is getting used. The Honorable Kermanshahi 09:53, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Actually United States still occupy by 2007 several colonies around the world:

Puerto Rico, Alaska, Hawaii, Pacific Islands, northern Mexico... without counting all Indians Territories it conquered in continental America.

Poland

Why there Polish Empire isn't included? Quoting Wikipedia: "Area

- 1582 	815,000 km2

314,673 sq mi

- 1618 	990,000 km2

382,241 sq mi" —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 83.15.3.75 (talk) 17:27, 14 May 2007 (UTC).

I added PLC (Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth) to the lists. — Kpalion^(talk) 12:03, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Sassanid Empire size completeley wrong

On the left is the map of wikipedia of the sassanid empire at it's greatest extend. as you see a lot of states are in this empire and I've added their sizes up and see that your size is totally wrong. here is a table I made of it, it on;y includes the states that are completeley in the Sassanid empire but the total number would be even higher

Nation	Size
Iran	1,648,195 km²
Yemen	527,968 km²
Turkmenistan	488,100 km²
Uzbekistan	447,400 km²
Iraq	438,317 km²
Oman	309,500 km²
Syria	185,180 km²
Jordan	89,342 km²
Azerbaijan	86,600 km²
United Arab Emirates	83,600 km²
Georgia	69,700 km²
Armenia	29,800 km²
Israel	20,770 km²
Kuwait	17,818 km²
Qatar	11,437 km²
Lebanon	10,452 km²
Palestine	6,020 km²
Bahrain	665 km²
Total	4,470,864 km²

Now don't come with the argument that this is the sassanid empire at it's largest and it usually was smaller because you've shown all empire at their largest. Let's make it 5 milion instead of 3.5 milion or at least make it 4,470,864 km²/4.5 milion, what do you think? The Honorable Kermanshahi 16:38, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Here are the other countries that where occupied by the Sassanid Empire

Nation	Size	Explenation
Afghanistan	~630,000 km²	they don't posses around half of Badakhshan
Egypt	~450,000km²	a bit less than half (490.00)
Turkey	~400,000 km²	around half (391,782)
Pakistan	~360,000 km²	most of Balochistan and some of the Federal Tribal areas
Kazakhstan	~350,000 km²	parts of Mangghystau, Qyzylorda, South Kazakhstan and Zhambyl.
Saudi Arabia	~200,000 km²	My estimations
India	196,000 km²	mostly Gujarat
Russia	~154,000 km²	parts of Krasnodar, Stavropol, Dagestan, Chechnya, Karachay-Cherkessia, Karbardino-Balkaria, North Ossetia-Alania, Adygeya and Ingushetia but the total area is smaller than Syria
Tajikistan	~120,000 km²	they don't posses about a third of Gorno-Badakhshan
Kyrgyzstan	~110,000 km²	they don't posses Issyk-Kul and Naryn.
Libya	~30,000 km²	around the same size as Armenia
Total	3,000,000 km²	All numbers are made in to round numbers

4,470,864 + 3,000,000 = 7,470,864 = ~ 7.47 milion km². Has anyone got any objections? IF you do tell me and we'll duscuss it. The Honorable Kermanshahi 11:25, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

That's one brilliant case there Kermanshahi, hard to argue with that. :)--Arsenous Commodore 18:09, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

I lowered the size of the sassanid empire in the ancient chart list because ancient times are considered to have ended around 500 ad and the sassanid empire would have made its brief yet major territory gains during the medievil period -dermot —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dmoloney (talk • contribs) 18:59, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

TheTruthA The Sassanid Empire did not grow this big before sometime between 600-650 AD. It can therefore not be counted as a 7,4 in the list of ANCIENT empires. (talk) 12:32, 9 April 2009 (UTC) TheTruthA

Macedonian Empire

There's a contradiction about the size of Macedonian Empire. You can see 7.61 million km² in the first section and 5.4 million km² in the second. Which one is correct?--Sa.vakilian(t-c) 03:24, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

5.4 is correct, I have not seen a given source for 7.6 million, I don't even know who added that there, I haven't noticed that before, I think someone made it like that recently.--Arsenous Commodore 17:35, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

The size of the Macedonian empire was 5,400,000 because by the time they invaded the Achamenid empire, the Achaminid empire had significantly shrunk. The Honorable Kermanshahi 11:30, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

ok lets try and be serious on this. I added the areas of present day states that were controlled by the Macedonian Empire.

Bulgaria 110,910 km²

FYROM 25,333 km²

Albania 28,748 km²

Kosovo 10,887 km²

Serbia 88,361 km² roughly half -> 40,000 km²

Greece 131,990 km²

Turkey 783,562 km²

Syria 183,885 km²

Lebanon 10,452 km²

Israel 22,072 km²

Jordan 89,342 km²

Egypt 1,001,449 km²

Iraq 438,317 km²

Iran 1,648,195 km²

Afghanistan 652,090 km²

Pakistan 803,940 km²

Tajikistan 143,100 km²

Turkmenistan 488,100 km² roughly half -> 200,000 km²

Uzbekistan 447,400 km² roughly one third -> 150,000 km²

Kyrgyzstan 199,900 km² roughly a quarter -> 50,000 km²

Total 6,524,272 km²

Alexander was proclaimed Strategos Autokrator (Commander in Chief and Emperor) of all Greeks in Corinth. In order to be in the 'safe' side of the estimation i didn't include the areas of northern Libya (Cyrene), Southern Italy and Sicily (Magna Graecia), Southern France (Massilia, Nicaea, Monaco), northeastern Spain and the northern shores of Black Sea (Taurica) which were populated and controlled by Greeksin 4th century BC.

the 5.4 million sq km is a wrong estimation and should be changed. Chabos4 01:14, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Sweden

How come that Sweden (Swedish empire) aren't listed? /Paco 192.176.230.1 11:53, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Probably cause it wasn't big enough. The Honorable Kermanshahi 11:28, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Actually it was big enough. The Swedish Empire was comprised of modern Sweden, Finland and Estonia, plus some other areas, like Ingria, Karelia, Livonia, Trøndelag and a few small areas situated in modern Germany. If you sum the areas of Sweden, Finland and Estonia together, you'll see that the Swedish Empire was at least 833,335km², which makes it bigger than e.g. Austria-Hungary and the Akkadian Empire. I'd add the empire to the list if I could, but unfortunately I don't have the exact info on its area, and I have no idea where I could find it. --ざくら木 14:39, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Homogeneous list

That's a nice article but there are several problems. Some data should be adjusted 'cause they are abvoiusly wrong... but there are few simple changes I propose in order to make the list coherent:

1- remove Brazil Empire once at all, 'cause it was not un Empire;

2- count Russia's area in 1867 instead of 1895, 'cause at that time it was bigger;

3- correct Imperial Japan's area 'cause it's not logic count all the territories it conquered during WWII since it didn't annex them;

4- credit China just once in each category, since it's what it was done for the other countries;

5- remove the "Nazi" adjective from Germany, remove the WWI figure 'cause it's a double, and use the 1943's surface (after annexion of north-eastern Italy) instead of the 1941's one;

6- Add the Holy Roman Germanic Empire, currently absent;

7- Highest American GPD should be added.

193.253.199.143 05:36, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Mongol Empire

B.R. Gordon's account is nothing but an unverifiable source. The Mongol Empire didn't reach its peak in 1268 when the Southern Sung territories still had not been conquered. [Needham, Joseph, Science and Civilization in China Volume 1] 219.73.11.127 07:22, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Safavid Persian Empire

File:Safavid Empire 1501–1722 (AD).PNG

Iran 1,648,200 km²
Azerbaijan 86,600 km²
Armenia 29,800 km²
Iraq 350,000 km²
Turkey 150,000 km²
Kuwait 12,000 km²
Afghanistan 300,000 km²
Pakistan 160,000 km²
Turkmenistan 80,000 km²
Russia 10,000 km²
Syria 8,000 km²
Georgia 3,000 km²
Total 2,837,600 km² = ~2,85 milion The Honorable Kermanshahi 19:53, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Afsharid Persian Empire

Iran 1,648,200 km²
Azerbaijan 86,600 km²
Armenia 29,800 km²
Iraq 350,000 km²
Turkey 100,000 km²
Kuwait 12,000 km²
Afghanistan 400,000 km²
Pakistan 300,000 km²
Turkmenistan 180,000 km²
Russia 80,000 km²
Georgia 45,000 km²
Total 3,231,600 km² = ~3,23 milion The Honorable Kermanshahi 20:12, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

American Empire?

In this article, I think it is only really appropriate to include real/actual empires rather than hypothetical ones. ImperialismGo 05:09, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

the link directed to the wrong article previously that's why it looked like it was discussing a hypothetical empire. It was patched up a few days ago.Zebulin 17:36, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Who can do that?

In those lists USSR should be entered (i remind you, USSR is a seperate unit from Russian Empire). If someone could do that it will be really nice. PocketMoon 11:10, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

It wasn't an empire, just a large country. The Honorable Kermanshahi 14:44, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

USSR, those who won WW2, those who 1/4 of the world obeyed them, USSR that for a long time were first in science in the world (esspecially in space discovery), weren't an empire? USSR was a huge empire, from WW2 till the 80's it was the strongest in the world. It was a superpower (and i'm not the one inventing this name for them). PocketMoon 16:53, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

None of those attributes define an empire as defined in the lead of this article. Nonetheless by that very definition the USSR was in fact an empire. The real reason that USSR apparently is not listed seems to be that a decision was made to only list the largest empire when a succession of empires inherited the same political unit. Since the russian empire at it's greatest extent was a little larger than the USSR and since the USSR was a direct political descendant of that Russian empire only the Russian empire gets the listing. I think this is simply done to keep the list to a manageable size.Zebulin 23:51, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

I think an interesting question might be whether the various nominally independent but soviet occupied satellite states constituted a geographically larger phase of the succession of Russian empires than any earlier incarnation. The soviet union obviously claimed that these satellites were wholly independent nations associating with the soviet union as a result of the dedication of their populations to soviet ideology but the article appears to currently favor defacto status over nominal in area calculations. The tough part would be finding a credible and authorative source for the area of such a Soviet Empire. For instance which communist states were truly dominated by the soviet union (ie prevented by force of arms from leaving or dissasociating) and which were associated by genuine mutual interests (ie Cuba)?Zebulin 14:12, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Realm of Norway

At it's height in the early midle ages the Norwegian kingdom ruled over an area of aprox. 2,650,115 km²(present day mainland Norway: 323,762 km²+Greenland: 2,166,086 km²+Iceland: 103,000 km²+ Faeroe: 1,399 km²+Shetland: 1,466 km²+Orkney: 990 km²+Isle of Man: 572 km²+ Outer Hebrides: 3,071 km²+Inner Hebrides:?+ Jemtland: 34,009 km²+Herjedalen: 11,405 km²+Särna and Idre:?+Bohuslen:4,400 km²) Inge 15:03, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

I think the vast majority of greenland remained unexplored at that time let alone effectively controlled by Norwegian government.Zebulin 23:53, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

That is of course true. But a large part of it was under controll. I haven't been able to find an exact area for that or for the Hebrides, Idre and Särna as you can see. Even if you remove as much as 2 000 000km² the area is still larger then some of the ones in the article. Then again most of the article has a problem with verifyability. Inge 08:58, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

The Swedish Empire

"Swedish Empire - 3.6 million km²" Couldn't find it sourced... there's a, too low though, figure in the article about the Swedish Empire. I've added Sweden and Finland together with 1/3 of Norway, which makes it around 688000+128000=816000 km2. Original research, but maybe someone could find a source for a more accurate number? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.217.152.202 (talk) 02:14, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Wrong dates

Sorry, but i think that there is not a really good precisation and concretation of the empires. For example the Spanish Empire was bigger under Philip II, when we got the Portuguese Kingdom as well.

Thnka you —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.31.55.171 (talk) 21:42, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

The information about Spanish empire is wrong

I would like you to check the spanish wikipedia page of "Spanish Empire" (Imperio español), and you will see that the biggest expansion of spanish empire was under the kingdom of Philip II and not under Charless III, because under the kingdom of Philip II there were territories like Portugal, some points from India, Most of the occidental porguese coast, Brazil, etc. who were part of Spanish kingdom, but sure that it wasn t under Charless III kingdom. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.6.43.120 (talk) 09:45, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

No, it is not wrong.The Portuguese empire was not part of the Spanish empire.Both empires during that period, were ruled totaly separate from each other.XPTO 17:15, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

It s not wrong, you can check this wikipedia web page "http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperio_Espa%C3%B1ol" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.0.132.195 (talk) 12:04, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

• I also agree that the Portuguese empire was not part of the Spanish empire.Both empires remained separate.Johnn Dorian (talk) 14:52, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

It s not abot to agree or not to agree, just about to read history books, so please, go to whatever history book or the the wikipedia web page of spanish empire (imperio español) and there you will have all the explanition, but please do not speak just with no idea, please try to inform before. Thank you —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.44.87.20 (talk) 19:21, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

I never read in any History book, that the Portuguese empire was part of the Spanish empire.What everybody knows, except you apparently, is that both empires shared the same King but they still remained separate and autonomous from each other.The Portuguese empire was ruled by portuguese only, and kept there own autonomy, flag, language, coin, institutions, etc.XPTO (talk) 20:11, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Please, le s go to this web page and check it "http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperio_Espa%C3%B1ol" if you need some translation or whatver, if i can be useful, i will try as much as possible to translate some part that can be interesting for you or to develop this wikipedia page of "list of empires". Thanks you —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.44.87.20 (talk) 12:11, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, but I dont care what it says in the spanish wikipedia.I just care on History books and real facts, and no book says that. See this websites talking of the Spanish empire, none of them have the Portuguese empire as part of the Spanish: http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?groupid=1734&HistoryID=ab49 http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761595536_1/Spanish_Empire.html http://uk.encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_781533809/Spanish_Empire.html http://www.ucalgary.ca/applied_history/tutor/eurvoya/Imperial.html http://www.angelfire.com/mac/egmatthews/worldinfo/europe/spainempire.htmlXPTO (talk) 13:58, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

If we combine the areas of the Spanish empire and Portuguese empire under Philip II to determine the area of the spanish empire at it's greatest extent we should also combine those areas to determine the area of the Portuguese empire at it's greatest extent since philip did not conquer or annex the portuguese empire rather he assumed it's throne. He ruled both separately but as they were ruled by one emperor perhaps it could be seen as a single empire for the purposes of this article.Zebulin (talk) 23:11, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

The situation of the Portuguese empire and the Spanish empire being both ruled by the House of Habsburgs during 60 years, is very similar to the rule of the House of Hanover in Great Britain, in wich King George I ruler of Hanover (and his descendants)also became King of Great Britain ruling both countries at the same time.Does that mean that the British empire must be part of some Hanover empire because they had the same ruler?Well i dont think so, and also I never saw in any History book a combined empire of Hanover and Great Britain just like I've never saw one of Spain and Portugal's empire too.XPTO (talk) 17:38, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Songhai Empire

Hi everyone. I finally added the Songhai Empire in at 1.4 million square kilometers. Took me forever to find a source for its size. I wasn't sure what citation format u all were following so I used the following in the ancient empires section () and tried to make a shorthand for this in the medieval section as (). For some reason it added a second link from the medieval section when I was just trying to quote the same source twice. Let me know what changes I need to make so I don't screw up the page. Good work everyone. Scott Free (talk) 19:04, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Mayan Empire

should this be in - I have not out of deference and ignorance chad —Preceding unsigned comment added by Chadnash (talk • contribs) 01:02, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Angevin Empire

Why no mention of the Angevin Empire? Signsolid (talk) 03:16, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Modern Chinese Empire

Is the current chinese empire on this list and i missed it? If not, it should be included somewhere, because it is as large as or almost as large as the US empire. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 164.58.180.210 (talk) 15:14, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

File:China ling 90.jpg

China proper is the pale yellow coloured areas on the map.

American Overseas territories

China does not possess an empire as it does not possess any possessions. The American empire listed is not an American empire of today, which today America does not possess an empire, but the American empire of 1898-1946. Having said that China could be considered an empire like that of the Soviet Union. China is constructed much like the Soviet Union was by invading and absorbing many smaller neighbouring countries such as Tibet, making it much larger than the original China proper. Also the United States still possesses a few possessions such as Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, and American Samoa. Signsolid (talk) 20:49, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Ok. I am still not sure that i understand. Because the Soviet Union is listed, The Peoples Republic of China should be listed as well, correct?164.58.180.210 (talk) 15:41, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

The exclusion of modern communist China as well as modern India is inconsistent with the definition forming the basis of the article:

An empire is a state that extends dominion over areas and populations distinct culturally and ethnically from the culture/ethnicity at the center of power. Often, there is an emperor at the head of an empire. An empire is not necessarily a unity, though.

Communist China extends dominion over 56 different ethnic groups with distinct cultures and languages who are dominated by the Mandarin-speaking ruling class. The situation is analogous to that of the Soviet Union.

India is also a case where many (though far fewer than in China) culturally and linguistically diverse populations are domainted by a Hindi-speaking ruling class. If not for the legacy of the British Empire and the adoption of English as a secondary official language, India could well have broken up into separate states even after the split with Pakistan (witness the violence that erupted in non-Hindi speaking parts of the country when an attempt was made to discontinue the use of English in the mid-1960's). Only 30% of the population speaks Hindi as a first-language and at least 21 other languages are spoken by dominated ethnic groups within the country.

Although I do not seriously advocate Canada being added, the French-speaking minority in Quebec is dominated by the English-speaking culture at the center of power. The definition serving as the basis of the article is overly broad and so imprecise that almost every country in the world fits the definition. However, given some of the other countries already considered empires in the article by the definition given, then intellectual honesty demands the inclusion of modern communist China and democratic India. The inclusion of the Qing Empire and the Mughal Empire already set a precedent given that essentially the same ethnic groups are dominated today by the modern governments of those regions. Llihrednu (talk) 06:28, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

China succeded Qing and smaller, so not written for a second time as same entity.India would be possible as not to be counted as succeding Mughal or British Empire. USA not possible because of just tiny few islands, then even New Zealand would have to be named for the few Pacific possessions and also Venezuela for the few islands inhabited by Natives, Australia, Nigeria and all other African and South American and Asian countries (even Japan because of Ainu and Okinawans),Canada federal country, can't be counted otherwise Belgium should be included and UK (see Wales and Scotland), Germany(Bavaria and Sorbs and Danish minorities of Schleswig), Switzerland (German parts dominate French and Italian parts), Finland (dominate Swedish people of Aland Islands and Saami),statistics would be led ad absurdum. User:kailas007,28.08.2008 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.58.40.138 (talk) 04:18, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Serbian Empire - 200,000?

What Empire? Yugoslavia? AtomAtom (talk) 19:53, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

No, there was no Yugoslavia in the 14th century. -- Jao (talk) 20:52, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Where's Albanian Empire? with Kosovo? AtomAtom (talk) 19:53, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

EU

Largest empires by economy - and where's EU here? AtomAtom (talk) 19:56, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

EU has today 33% share of the world economy. Do we face with a giant empire and we didn't noticed?AtomAtom (talk) 19:58, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

No, till today EU is not an international entity, it doesn't regard itself as one (that's why it could not become a member of the UN etc.), more specific would be the EC, but this entity still lacks will to ascertain power over territories, also people needed who see it as own "state", per definitionem otherwise no "empire"/nation/state/country according to international public law. User:kailas007,28.08.2008 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.58.40.138 (talk) 04:07, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Misleading comparisons

Can we not find a way of distinguishing the size, at least where possible, between the imperial power and its empire? For example "American Empire" is listed as being the 10th largest of all time in terms of size, whereas it was actually quite a small empire (Philippines, some islands in the Caribbean, some in the Pacific) - most of that figure actually relates to the size of the actual U.S. rather than of its colonial empire of the time.

I understand that this may be more difficult to achieve in cases such as the Russian Empire. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jarby (talk • contribs) 16:42, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Problems of semantics, provinence and gravitas

Wikipedia is a wonderful thing but its weaknesses, compared to academically edited encyclopaedias, include the large numbers of assertions contributed that have the distinctive ring of unqualified and biased presumption. How therefore, can this resource ever be relied upon as definitive? The upside of this methodology is that constant revision is occurring. When one considers just how much revision is taking place in the official academic world in just about every discipline from History and Science to Medicine and Social Morality, one might be forgiven for thinking that a greater part of officially accepted academia is just as unreliable.

Concerning Empires though, much of the debate discussing the semantics and definitions will always be liable to argument on a forum such as this since no relevant editorial or academic standard can be established. Following this conversation so far, I do wonder why folks who quite evidently have limited knowledge of the subject they make assertions about, feel compelled to reveal the fact? Just a couple of things to consider though, since some writers have mentioned Greenland as if it were a contentious part of the British Empire, Greenland is not and never has been a part of the British Empire. Greenland has been a part of the Danish Empire since Lief Ericson claimed it during the time of the Vikings. The Danish Empire has not even been mentioned here, even though at its peak it would have been considerably larger than others listed here, once including other parts of Scandinavia and Iceland beyond today’s Denmark and the Faeroe Islands, which together with Greenland remain semi autonomous parts of Denmark, making Denmark arguably one of the biggest empires existing today, in terms of geographic size.

With regard to the British Empire, I can understand why some folks, for socio-political-tribal reasons, don’t like the aggrandisement of it. It may well be that one can belittle the extent of the British Empire by nit-picking over definitions, but the power of overbearing influence in terms of politics, culture, rule of law, socio-economic infrastructure and military domination must be the real basis for measuring an empire and in that respect no other empire, including those of the Mongols or ancient Rome, comes anywhere near. At its height, immediately after the League of Nations mandates of ex German and Ottoman territories after World War One after Britain had captured by conquest, Germany’s extensive African and South Pacific territories and much of Turkish Arabia, including Palestine (Israel) Iraq, Jordan and the whole of the Arab Gulf from Kuwait to Oman. At that time the dominions of Canada. Australia and New Zealand were still very much a part of the Empire despite having gained considerable local autonomy. But the actual power of Britain’s empire extended far beyond the niceties of internationally recognised political borders, Egypt, Sudan and Saudi Arabia were militarily, politically and economically occupied and/or controlled by Britain. Britain also maintained such a presence in China and despite the often misunderstood history of Afghanistan this relatively lawless frontier of imperial India was very much under the control and influence of Britain, to the extent that Britain chose and installed their Kings and regularly battered tribal war lords whenever they got uppity. But more than that, Britain prevented Russia from extending her empire into that and other regions on the edge of India, such as Nepal and Tibet, by ensuring it was Britain that held sway and none other.

Additionally, consider the fact that for centuries most of the oceans of the world were totally dominated by the Royal Navy. The patriotic anthem ‘Rule Britannia, Britannia rules the waves’ was no mere whimsy. The Royal Navy’s doctrine was in both policy and fact, even up until the outset of World War Two, that; “The Royal Navy shall be larger than the Worlds next two navies together” (sic). The Royal Navy was not only large but well ordered with epic and dazzling displays of naval skill peppering and dominating the course of World history. Apart from a few very brief tactical suspensions of that total maritime domination, after all, the Britain had an entire Maritime World to control; the Royal Navy ruled the oceans of the World for more than three centuries, from the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 to the destruction of the combined German and Italian navies between 1939 and 1944. Whether or not such a maritime empire is accepted as an empire per se, the fact that Britain instituted the Royal Courts of Admiralty in London with which they presumed, tellingly without irony, to enforce laws upon everyone else anywhere upon the seas, proven by the extensive large scale arrest of slavers, pirates and smugglers on every ocean of the World by the Royal Navy, who were tried at the Admiralty Courts in London, must be prima facia evidence of imperial power across the oceans. So not only was the British Empire, if the actuality of total dominance is to be the scope of it, the most extensive in terms of land mass, geographic spread and population (the only empire upon which the Sun never set), but in terms of actual reach and power over the Earths surface, both wet and dry, no other empire has ever got close to the extent of Britain’s, or is ever likely to again. 62.49.27.221 (talk) 17:02, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Removal of American Empire

This page is a list of the de jure Empires. I think we could include the hypothetical "American Empire" but under a different section, such as "Disputed Empires" or "Cultural Empires" something along those lines. (Trip Johnson (talk) 23:02, 9 April 2008 (UTC))

where does the page say that? I do see that it says:

An empire is a state that extends dominion over areas and populations distinct culturally and ethnically from the culture/ethnicity at the center of power.

Zebulin (talk) 06:52, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Huh? By that definition, any state that contains more than one distinct culture or ethnicity, where those cultures or ethnicities aren't at an equal balance of power, is an empire. By that definition Finland is an empire because it has a Swedish minority, which it seeks to govern, and which it would certainly not allow to secede. Imperialism would seem to require no or limited (i.e., not proportional to the rest of the state) representation in the government on the part of the population of a certain area. 69.209.78.94 (talk) 15:46, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

This article wikilinks the Empire article in its lead sentence. The second sentence of the Empire article says, "Politically, an empire is a geographically extensive group of states and ethnic peoples united and ruled either by a monarch or a group authority." The lead sentence of the American Empire article says, "American Empire is a controversial term referring to the political, economic, military and cultural influence of the United States." My take on that is that the so-called "American Empire", whatever it might be—and it's not at all clear to me what "American Empire" might or might not be—is not an empire within the meaning of that term as used by this article. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 06:15, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

American Empire?

this recent edit changed numerous instances of

[[Overseas expansion of the United States|United States of America]]

to

[[Overseas expansion of the United States|American Empire]].

This seems potentially confusing to me since an article named American Empire exists. Just thought I'd mention that here in case it's a problem. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 04:39, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Removal of American Empire / United States

America is, simply, NOT an Empire. This is a list of Empires which expanded through conquest, whereas in the U.S.'s case, states were admitted into the Union through democracy. In my opinion, United States is there through, perhaps, jealousy of European Empires and the US not having one. The term was coined by a bunch of students, and thus, I think the best we could do for the United States is put it in its own area of "Disputed Empires". (Trip Johnson (talk) 16:58, 6 May 2008 (UTC))

I think the disputed empires section is a good idea. I've seen some entries on this page that I feel are dubious candidates for inclusion at best. America DID expand through conquest, however. Still, I don't think its really an empire since the culture at the center of power (European Americans for the most part) are still a majority in the "empire". This may change in the future, but the cultures which are distinct from the founding one were not conquered into it but immigrated there. The only folks conquered into America were the Native Americans and they are far from a majority here. Then again, if u really want to be technical, the founding culture of the United States (the English) are a minority within the country today (when compared with the Irish and Germans who came after them). Still power in America is not exclusive to any of these cultures.Scott Free (talk) 21:56, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Looks to me like it's just a list of large empires. Conquest doesn't seem to have anything to do with it, according to the empire article; "An empire is a state that extends dominion over populations distinct culturally and ethnically from the culture/ethnicity at the center of power."

I suppose you have to decide whether this "American Empire" held dominion over peoples who where ethnically and culturally distinct from those who held power. America is probably culturally diverse (arguable, I suppose); with Native Americans, Spanish, Mexicans and so on residing there.

The case for "dominion" is less clear cut. Can democracy ever be dominion? I suppose it depends how much of a minority your interests are, and how pluralist the state is. If people can vote, it is difficult to argue them as being under dominion. But if people are unable to vote, they could under dominion. Have blacks always been allowed to vote? What about illegal immigrants?

America though, it's recognised as an empire in the same why, for example, the French Empire is recognised as an empire. The French Empire is pretty much undisputed. The American Empire is pretty well disputed. A footnote should be added, to show that the American Empire is disputed, at the least. --CalPaterson (talk) 19:08, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

fillipinos and other inhabitants of territories conquered from the spanish in the Spanish-American war certainly were not given the right to vote or send voting representatives to Washington. It was an empire in essentially the same manner as the democratic British Empire or post revolutionary french empire were empires. What is the nature of this dispute you cite apart from obvious embarrassment by US editors who want to pretend their country was somehow innocent of the imperialism of the late 19th and early 20th century?Zebulin (talk) 05:27, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Entering the debate slandering people doesn't gain you _anything_. By doing this you ensure that the continuing debate will be an argument, and stifle any chance of a decent discussion. I'm not actually an American, and I'm just trying to get this article to decide whether America should be included as an empire.

As for the actual issue at hand, the Philippines looks to a case of an empire, with the arguable point that it wasn't without some electoral representational for very long (6 years between 1901 and 1907). I know they didn't have full representation, but some representation makes it a little unclear. Cuba and American Samoa are other examples, but they both also have arguable circumstances. --CalPaterson (talk) 12:12, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Zebulin, you said: "fillipinos and other inhabitants of territories conquered from the spanish in the Spanish-American war certainly were not given the right to vote or send voting representatives to Washington." U.S. voting rights at the Federal level are constitutionally bound to the U.S. States (and, since the ratification of the 23rd Amendment in 1961, the District of Columbia) (see Voting rights in the United States#Overseas and nonresident Citizens). The U.S. Constitution would need to be amended to change this (e.g., as it was amended for the 23rd) . Also, please note that during the Commonwealth years (1935-1946), the Philippines sent one elected Resident Commissioner to the United States House of Representatives, as Puerto Rico currently does today (see Commonwealth of the Philippines). -- Boracay Bill (talk) 00:35, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

And this grants them more power in the 'empire' than colonials in the British or French empires how exactly?Zebulin (talk) 04:35, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

It's a factual correction, he wasn't making a point. --CalPaterson (talk) 19:56, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

I didn't mean to argue anything regarding relative empowerment, just to point out that the assertion that they "... certainly were not given the right to vote or send voting representatives to Washington" is inaccurate. In July 1907, the first elections for the Philippine Assembly were held (the locally-elected lower house of the Philippine legislature, established following on the Philippine Organic Act of 1902), and it opened its first session on October 16, 1907. Once the Philippines became a Commonwealth following on the Philippine Autonomy Act of 1916, local voters elected a Resident Commissioner to the United States House of Representatives. See the History of the Philippines (1898–1946) article. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 05:49, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

I didn't want this to turn into a debate on whether America is an Empire or not. Its just that it should be in its own disputed section. An Empire is a faction which expands through conquest, forcibly places the conquered people under its command and forces the subsequent nation to submit. Technically though America did expand through conquest, the areas which it conquered were admitted as states into its union through democracy. Empires do nothing of the sort. They force the subsequent nation into its empire, no democracy involved. While Oklahoma may become the State of Oklahoma, say if it was conquered by Spain again, it would simply be territory of the Spanish Empire. (82.28.237.200 (talk) 21:35, 4 July 2008 (UTC))

The Navajo didn't choose to become Americans, neither did the Ohio, the Dakota, the Cherokee, the Blackfoot, etc. If Nazi Germany had have survived WW2 and continued their ethnic cleansing in Poland, the Baltic, etc. and colonized the areas with Germans, leaving only small Polish (et al) homelands, would that mean that Germany wasn't imperial? The States to the West of the 13 originals, were American Colonies after the US conquered the Native Nations. Conquest + Colonization = Empire. The method of internal governance is irrelevant. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.148.123.76 (talk) 05:17, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

If you had checked the United States of America link in this article, you would have seen that while the presence of the US in this list is unrelated to the addition of various new states to the US, the spanish imperial possessions and other US overseas territorial gains during and as a part of the general trend of 19th century imperialism which that article also describes certainly fit the definition of empire used in this article.Zebulin (talk) 10:23, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Americans still refer to the famous "Conquest of the Wild West", the way indians where treated is not democratic at all, it was done through conquest, war and slavery. What America did to Japan it's the same the British did to China or India, just see the famous american Commodore Mathew C. Perry. Phillipines, Guam, Panama and Puerto Rico are other examples of imperialism. See Operation Condor in Chile, see the Che Guevara in Bolivia, Plan Colombia in Colombia, the Iran-Contra scandal in Nicaragua, all of Mexico's history, West Germany, Turkey, Israel, Bay of Pigs, the dictaroships of Argentina through the 1980's and 1990's. America IS an Empire. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.243.162.239 (talk) 15:00, 12 August 2008 (UTC) the British didnt invade China, but we actually ruled over india as an imperial state, our queen as the empress, with our goverment controling the country. There is no evidence at all that america is an empire, all its over see's terrotry is ether sent by the UN or a over see's colliny which many other countrys have but done consider to be an empire, an empire needs a monachy and america is republic, regardlis over see's expansion, it should be removed this artical is called 'a list of empires' and the USA isnt an empire in any contex. 84.64.14.35 (talk) 00:35, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Rome was a Republic. An Empire can be a republic. 68.148.123.76 (talk) 07:51, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Holy Roman Empire

Why isnt the Holy Roman Empire included in this list? It was larger then some of the empires that made the list. --Lucius Sempronius Turpio (talk) 07:30, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

The medieval list does include #23, the Frankish Empire, which I believe is understood to cover everything up to and including Charlemagne -- that is, the beginning of what is understood as the Holy Roman Empire. Nevertheless, the HRE, as it extended well into the modern period, was arguable something quite different from the Frankish Empire. Therefore, I agree with Lucius Sempronius Turpio: why isn't the HRE listed? Lapisphil (talk) 07:46, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Because it was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire. 90.205.92.29 (talk) 04:58, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

tang empire

the tang empire's size is WAY TOO SMALL, i just noticed, it was twice as big as ming and around same aize as qing,(not covering the same terrirories though), at its MAXIMUM EXTENT. it controlled goguryo, xinjiang, a big part of turkistan(kazakstan krgystan tajistan uzbekistan) northern afghanistan, northern pakistan and part of kashmir, and part of northeast iran, vietnam, southern mongolia.

territories it did not conquer were tibet and they used local soldiers and soldiers from allied states so dont nag me on how they couldnt have seized that amount of territory. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 162.83.135.187 (talk) 03:19, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

carthage

The Carthaginian empire should be listed if anyone can establish area 144.137.118.72 (talk) 10:53, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Göktürk Empire

The Göktürk Empire should be on this list. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.148.123.76 (talk) 04:52, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Population Size

I don't understand why the US is listed with a 1940's population. If the criteria is that the US ruled the Philippine's, then (a) ruling one other nation does not make one an empire and (b) then modern China's rule of Tibet makes modern China and empire and it should be listed.

Realistically, the title of this whole article should be "List of Largest Empires and States" —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kitplane01 (talk • contribs) 04:41, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. Presumably the reasoning was that if a political entity was large enough to be on this list, it would be an empire, so this would be a list of empires. But the U.S. clearly shows that this need not be the case, and if an entity is large but not an empire, or could be construed as not being an empire, why shouldn't we include it? Also, it's a tough call to make. With the definition given in the article, the U.S. could very well be an empire today – aren't Hawaii, Puerto Rico and American Samoa pretty "distinct culturally and ethnically from the culture/ethnicity at the center of power"? But any such discussion would be original research. (Then, the proposition "The U.S. is an empire" can probably be sourced, but so, no doubt, can "The U.S. is not an empire", so that doesn't help much.) Your proposed wording would rid us of all that, and for modern times it would just default to including the largest sovereign states, which is much more clear-cut (although not entirely, as e.g. China shows). For ancient and medieval empires, it would hardly make any difference. (The title should be in lower-case though.) -- Jao (talk) 09:53, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Han Dynasty China vs. Alexander the Great's Empire

Under ancient empires, Han Dynasty China is listed as having an area of 6 million km while Alexander's empire is listed as 5.9 million. However, Alexander's is ranked higher. So which one is correct? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.164.215.130 (talk) 08:45, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Mexican and Brazilian Empires

I can't believe how much eurocentrism exists in this page, of course both Mexican and Brazilian empires must be included, both had huge sizes, Mexico included much of current South USA and most Central America. I already added Mexico and it would be an obvious bias if you remove it Lefairh (talk) 19:09, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Spanish Empire/Iberian Union

one thing , the spanish empire in 1790 reached 20 million miles and not 19 million as incorrectly showed in the list

another thing , i think we should include the Iberian union empire shoudlnt we? —Preceding unsigned comment added by EuroHistoryTeacher (talk • contribs) 19:41, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Missing: Holy Roman Empire

I fail to find the Holy Roman Empire is the list. Does anyone has some data about the largest extent available to include that into the list? Cheers, MikeZ (talk) 14:23, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Propagandistic denomination

To say Nazi to German Nationalsocialists is not different than pejoratively calling Muslims "Muzzies" in some more decades, after a heavy propaganda campaign against them. Can anyone ever point out when did German Nationalsocialists ever called themselves "Nazis", opposed to Ashkenazi Jews? Shouldn't Wikipedia's neutrality at least be applied to the terminologies used? If your criteria is just taking propagandistic terms, shouldn't the Persian website of Israel be rather called "Regime of illegal occupation of Israel" or something like that? Would you accept that just because of how Iranians call Western characters? It makes no sense. Germanicus24

These Wikipedias rankings sucks

Every list in Wikipedia seems vandalized, there are always ethnic enlargments over reality; we can see it in "most spoken language by number of native speakers", "Countries by total area" etc. We must not attain to numbers, but to the truth. In my opinion, truth is a stuff reconigzed by everybody, and we what we can see here is a very tendentious and disconnected article. Is this the Wikipedia motto? "Be selfish alter the article as you wish, and everybody will know your truth" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.106.199.39 (talk) 23:17, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Maritime empires

I think the list of maritime empires is wrong by listing the Achaemenid Empire and Sassanid Empire. None of them controlled large overseas territories, except for a few islands in the mediterranian. The Sassanid one didn't even control them. So I believe they do not qualify as Maritime Empires. If they do, there are many others that should qualify as well, such as the Macedonian, Russian, Roman, and many others. If no one disagrees, I will remove them from the list in a few days, ok? Uirauna (talk) 18:57, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Hi Uirauna, I have carefully read your proposal, but see various problems with it. You are right when stating that the Sassanid Empire was not a maritime empire, it was not as large as the Achaemenid Empire, so I removed it myself. The Macedonian was even smaller, the Russian is possible, because they owned almost all the Arctic islands, for the Romans, I am not sure because their Empire was centered around water which except Britian it was all connected. So now we shall examine the AE (Achaemenid Empire). Well, the AE was (and please do not get me wrong, I think that the maritime list should be more expanded to include some Indonesian and Asian Pacifice, Tongon Empires too) a maritime empire, and here is why;

(Please feel free to click on the links, as they will help you see a better visual of regions discussed below)

Known possesions;

• For similarities, it is similar to the Italian Empire, which owned land that was almost connected but maritime across the Mediterranian.
• For the Seas, it owned half the Mediterranian Sea and Arabian Sea, all the seas of the Agaean, Thrace, Azov, Crete, Black, Red, Caspian, Persian Gulf, Gulf of Oman, Aral, Gulf of Aden.
• Now for the maritime lands, the AE at its greatest extent in 500-480-79 BC owned Cyprus, Crete, 75% of Greek islands, was allied in control with Sicily, at least half the islands of the Caspian, all the islands of the Red, Aral, Sea and of the, Persian, Oman, Aden, Gulf, plus the island of Socotra, Yemen, you may want to check this one out.

Possible possessions;

• According to Herodotus, in 513-18 BC Darius sent Scylax on an Indian to Arabian sea expedition which helped annex India into the Empire, and later Darius made an barely successfull invasion which he passed Moscow in a counter clockwise loop and may have reached the Baltic Sea and back to Persia, they also found a tablet of Darius in Gherla, Romania, which the inscription is mostly gone, but only this is readable, "I am Darius of Persia, I did..." [smote the Saka Paradaya?] (Scythians of Europe, which according to historians only the northern shore of the Black Sea was conquered).
• The same historian and others claim, that in 470 BC when Xerxes was punishing his brother Sataspes for an affair, he made him be the second expedition to circumnavigate Africa. The first people were the Phoenicians under Egypt, which Sataspes' expedition log reported to reach the Canary islands, have an encounter with a successfull fight with the Pygmies of Africa near the Congo basin, and even reaching the Port of Elizabeth in South Africa in the Atlantic. If they ever managed to go around all of Africa is not known, but they still came back alive.

So there you go, after much thought these are the reasons why I included the AE in this list. Which because they were mounting land and sea expolartions (with leaving semi-active bases, an empire too large for the time) spanning from the Atlantic-Indian oceans for sea, and in land, from India to Spain, Russia to South Africa, or doing these things at least 2,000 years before the Colonial Empires did. If I'm not mistaken this is a great feat for the time. Also, some of the claims I made here do not match the 7.5 m/kl size of the Empire listed here, thats why one day that number has to be updated. From researching various Empires and this one, the AE was somewhere near 12 m/kl, and so this article has to be heavily updated in the future. Finally, I would like to add, if you have disagreement, to just comment back on this page, because I have watchlisted this page, thanks.--Amerana (talk) 22:08, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for the reply Amerana. I agree with you about the AE, but I believe the Roman should be added as well. Rome had a very powerfull Roman Navy, and not only controlled an patrolled all of the Mediterranean but also the Atlantic and the English Channel. The Navy was extremly important to mantain Roman power, in a similar way to the British Empire, albeit in a shorter scale. A large part of the [[Roman Empire | File:RomanEmpire 117.svg}} was not accessable by Land from Rome or was too far away by land. Also, it disputed with Cartage (IMHO another maritime empire) the control of the mediterranean and won. Several decisive battles in the history of ancient Rome were fought in the sea such as Battle of Naulochus, Battle of Actium and Battle of Myonessus. What do you think? Uirauna (talk) 15:37, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Hi! First off, I want to thank you for your message here. I totally agree with your assessment on the Roman Empire, because it is fact that they owned most of Britian, which is an island, and many others, that would qualify for a maritime empire. I was not sure in the begining, but I am sure they probably had sailing routes similar to the AE, spanning the Atlantic to the Indian ocean. It is also a fact that a 2 inch marble head of Roman style figurine was discovered in Mexico(though how it got there is another matter), this is found in the Pre-columbian transatlantic theories, which are about cultures that sailed to the Americas before Columbus, which is mostly true, the best evidence is the Vikings in 1,000 AD fighting the Skaerlings in Newfoundland, native americans, and Viking buildings are all over the eastern coast of the U.S. Some evidence shows people sailed to the americas 5,000 years ago! Anyways sorry I got of topic, but regardless of the transatlantic theories, Rome was mostly a maritime empire, remember if you like, to add indonesian, tongan, polynesian empires to, because they are of course maritime empires, so thank you very much for reading. I also think the titles of the some of the empires is wrong too, like they call the Qing Empire, the [Chinese] Qing Empire! This is a nationlistic title! It should be only Qing Empire, they are trying to show off, even in Arab Empires, Russian, and many other cultures, the titles are messed up, do you agree? Cheers!--Amerana (talk) 22:47, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Hi again, as a update, I am now going to tell you that I added Rome for you and corrected like all the mistakes I talked about in the article, so now to improve the article we need to make sure the other maritime empires are included and each sources is reliable, thanks.--Amerana (talk) 04:02, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Proposal: 'Modern American Empire'

I see a lot of debate here over the American Empire, and some confusion over the historical American Empire and the present day country.

I propose a suggestion: adding a 'Modern American Empire'. Why? At the present time, the USA militarily, politically and economically controls at least 2 overseas states : Iraq and Afghanistan. To me, this clearly fits the definition of 'Empire' even if it is undeclared. As a world superpower, people expect to see it in the rankings. It therefore makes some common sense to include a reference to the modern status of the USA. I propose using one of 3 maximal land areas:

1. Present day USA including conquered territories like Iraq and Afghanistan.

2. Greatest military extent of USA - probably 1945/6, and including conquered countries like Japan, France, Germany, Italy, Egypt, Spain etc. (France was not 'conquered' as such but it was recaptured from the Nazis by the USA so I include it here. Other nations like UK and Canada played a part in the recapturing but it was overwhelmingly a USA organised, controlled, led, marshalled, and dominated effort. 3. USA plus highly controlled client states of the USA (greatest extent probably 1960s / 70s, including Iran, various CIA-controlled south american countries etc.) Asserting an exact figure here would be problematic, but some sort of list could be made of nations which had a new regime installed by the USA. This would help exclude 'sphere of influence' arguements.

I personally favour 1 or 2 as being clear and easy to source. Comments? RedTomato (talk) 02:30, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

The United States of America does not "control" Iraq and Afghanistan. The American troops in Iraq are there at the request of the sovereign Iraqi government recognized by international institutions such as the United Nations and all countries of the world. For the past 4 years (up until the end of 2008) the American troops were in Iraq under a United Nations mandate. The USA does not "occupy Iraq or Afghanistan" so the basis for a mention of the US empire because it controls those countries is incorrect.

The United States of America has the power and influence many empires in the past could only dream of, but it does not mean its an "Empire". BritishWatcher (talk) 03:18, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Firstly, you need reliable sources that claim the U.S is currently an empire, which of none exists. Your right BritishWatcher, how could the U.S be an empire if it is only a corporation? Secondly, I discovered shocking facts about the U.S recently. Thirdly, remember, in case of a national emergency, the shadow government must be activitated to protect the president and continuity of government, according to the NSA director quote on the news, "Every agency has an unseen agency inside it," and apparently when something goes wrong, who gets the blame? No one, research Operation Rex 84, Garden Plot, W2=after WW2, 1040=the year something big happened in Catholic Rome. Thank you.

Sources; [5], [6], [7], [8], [9]. These two LAST links are mostly true, if you want to skip the long paragraphs to read, only check out the LAST two links, they are videos, but I urge the reader to watch them to the end. The videos have a black screen with okay music, and list real laws that are legal today, if your an American citizen, it will be suicide not to watch these videos, it is your obligation to know these life or death laws, viewer discretion advised, now close your eyes, and forget everything you saw and lets sing the national anthem! Thank you my fellow Earthlings.--Amerana (talk) 04:58, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Umayyads Caliphate smaller than Achaemenid Empire?!! how come

without getting into too much argument, by just looking at maps its clear enough that the Umayyads were larger than the Achaemenid Empire, there were no Persian empire larger than the Umayyads. its historical fact that the Umayyads controlled all the Arabian peninsula, the Iranian Platue, all the coasts of the north africa and the iberian peninsula.Ioj (talk) 15:11, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Found this on the interested users talk page, of User:Amerana;

To begin with, the Umayyad size was wrong by some million km, so that was fixed a typo longed ago, and plus I found this.

Based on all the categories, these are all the numbers that it ranks in, 1, 4, 5, 7, 12= 29/5= The Achaemenid Empire is the '5.8th greatest empire up to the modern age known to the science of man.'

Check the section on the Sassanid Empire size revision on this talk page, and how it was found out it was 7.4 milkm, not 6.5 milkm, this section is similar to that.

Here it is, bigger and better maps of Persia support this, but are not on Wikipedia, should check google images...

greece= 131,990 km2/5= 131,990-26,398= (105,592 km2)

turkey= (783,562 km2)

macedonia= 25,713 km2/2= (12,856.5 km2)

romania= 238,391 km2/8= (29,798.875 km2)

ukraine= 603,628 km2/17= (35,507.5 km2)

russia= (~154,000 km2)

georgia= (69,700 km2)

azerbaijan= (86,600 km2)

armenia= ( 29,800 km2)

iran= (1,648,195 km2)

cyprus= (9,251 km2)

lebanon= (10,452 km2)

israel= (20,770 km2)

iraq= (438,317 km2)

jordan= (89,342 km2)

egypt= (~668,300 km2)

libya= (~109,971.3 km2) Because of this was conquered at its greatest extent, it would make it bigger than Sassanid Empire.

arabia= (716,563.3 km2)

kazakhstan= (54,4980 km2)

uzbekistan= (447,400 km2)

turkmenistan= (488,100 km2)

kyrgyzstan= (149,925-[174,912]-199,900 km2)

tajikistan= (143,100 km2)

afganistan= (647,500 km2)

pakistan= (803,940 km2)

india= (~547,873.3 km2)

qatar= (11,437 km2)

bahrain= (655 km2)

uae= (83,600 km2)

oman= (309,500 km2)

yemen= (527,968 km2)

socotra= (3,796 km2) Source is page the persian empire by james cook, page 246 and 81? Because of this was conquered at its greatest extent, it would make it bigger than Sassanid Empire.

djibouti= (23,200 km2) Because of this was conquered at its greatest extent, it would make it bigger than Sassanid Empire.

eritrea= (117,600 km2) Because of this was conquered at its greatest extent, it would make it bigger than Sassanid Empire.

ethiopia= (~368,100 km2) Because of this was conquered at its greatest extent, it would make it bigger than Sassanid Empire.

sudan= (~501,162.6 km2) Because of this was conquered at its greatest extent, it would make it bigger than Sassanid Empire.

TOTAL= [~10,763,412.38 million km2]

[edit]

The end.--153.18.22.30 (talk) 22:28, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Came on, Romania, Ukraine, Ethipia, Sudan, Eritrea, Oman, Yemen, achaemenids?? No, no --Bentaguayre (talk) 00:59, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Protect this page

This page have become a total chaos, people enter here and change the dates according to their calculations, now we have the Alexander empire with more than 11 millions km2, other guys stimate theirself the extension of Sassanian Empire... The only size dates allowed must be, according with wikipedia rules about information, those which are well supported by achademics works. --Bentaguayre (talk) 01:02, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree with you, it has been changed again and again without references or any valid data. Uirauna (talk) 02:49, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

I've semi-protected it to stop new IPs, I suspect one of the IP hoppers is a user who has been banned indefinitely under various socks. Too much of it has no references anyway, and 'largest'? Larger than what? Do we have a list of small empires somewhere? dougweller (talk) 07:43, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Hey, we need this page so various chauvinists can waste their time fighting over which people has the biggest genitals empire. This is Wikipedia, you know. List of small empires? I'd start with the Hackney Empire. --Folantin (talk) 12:15, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Sources

I've just looked for figures for Alexander's empire, found figures ranging from 1.5 million square miles to 22 million. Then I looked at the sources used here. East-West Orientation of Historical Empires Peter Turchin, Jonathan M. Adams, and Thomas D. Hall is a reliable source by our criteria, Bruce R. Gordon definitely not and should be removed. We can add more figures from Turchin et al. Where we can find reliable sources from different estimates, we should be clear about the differences. Meanwhile perhaps we should put fact tags besides unsourced entries. dougweller (talk) 06:16, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Rewriting the whole list

Ok, lets try to organize this mess. Bellow I created a table with all the 'empires' listed here. Lets go one by one and fill up the data, BUT ONLY WHEN REFERENCES ARE AVAILABLE! So everyone please do not fill the 'choosen size' and 'choosen source' yet, only after we have discussed. Also, if there is no reference AT ALL to an empire's size, it should not be included in the final list. If there are multiple conflicting references, please write all of them, just like the example in the first line. When this table has enought data, we move it over to the main article. What do you think? Uirauna (talk) 21:56, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Done?	Name	Date	Leader	Sizes & Sources	Choosen Size	Choosen Source
	British Empire	1922	George V	"33.67 - Colossus By Niall Ferguson, p 15"
	Mongol Empire
	Russian Empire	1895	Alexander III of Russia	22.8 - Turchin
	Spanish Empire
	Qing Empire
	French Empire
	Greek Empire
	Portuguese Empire
	Umayyad Caliphate
	United States
	Abbasid Caliphate
	Rashidun Caliphate
	Achaemenid Empire
	Brazilian Empire
	Japanese Empire
	Sassanid Empire
	Ming Empire
	Han Empire
	Macedonian Empire
	Maurya Empire
	Roman Empire
	Ottoman Empire
	Tang Empire
	Mughal Empire
	Seleucid Greek Empire
	Pala Empire
	Gupta Empire
	Western jin dynasty
	Byzentine Empire
	Mexican Empire
	Kushan Empire
	Parthian Empire
	Hunnic Empire
	Hapthalite khanate
	Gokturk khaganate
	Song dynasty
	Afsharid Persian Empire
	Great Seljuq Empire
	Italian Empire
	Dutch Empire
	Nazi Empire
	Chola Empire
	Rouran khaganate
	Safavid Empire
	German Empire
	Uyghur Khaganate
	Xiongnu Empire
	Ghaznavid Empire
	Delhi Sultanate
	Danish colonial empire
	Kalmar Union
	Khazar Empire
	Qin Empire
	Qajar Empire
	Median Empire
	Belgian Empire
	Northern Wei Dynasty
	Southern Qi Dynasty
	Jin dynasty
	Ptolemic Empire
	Saffarid dynasty
	Inca Empire (Tahuantinsuyu)
	Maratha Empire
	Neo-Assyrian Empire
	Songhai Empire
	Gurjara-Pratiharas
	Aksumite Empire
	Rashtrakuta dynasty
	Srivijaya Empire
	Frankish Empire
	Nanda Empire
	Thai Empire / Siamese Empire
	Chalukya Empire
	Mali Empire
	Holy Roman Empire
	Swedish Empire
	Egyptian Empire
	Satavahana
	Western Chalukya Empire
	Harsha's empire
	Almoravid Empire
	Khmer Empire
	Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
	Grand Duchy of Lithuania
	Bulgarian Empire
	Austro-Hungarian Empire
	Akkadian Empire
	Sikh Empire
	Hittite Empire
	Neo-Babylonian Empire
	Vijayanagara Empire

Good idea. I've already provided a good source above for most of them. BUT -- 'largest'? How is that defined? dougweller (talk) 22:35, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

South American Empires

Why are there no South/middle/north american empires, such as the mayan empire, the aztecs, etc? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.4.142.204 (talk) 01:04, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Size of the Roman empire

Republic at its height, 2m km²?

Empire at its height, 9m km²?

According to this source on the page of the Roman Republic, it was -- right before Caesar's civil war -- about 2m km². According to the source just cited for the Roman Empire on this page, it reached 9m km² at its height. Looking at these two pictures, the difference between them was clearly not x4. Now, there are two possibilities for this absurd discrepancy:

• One of the two sources is wrong; in this case, we need to identify which one is wrong and fix each page accordingly.
• These sources are not using the same criteria for size, i.e., one is counting client states or maritime area and the other is not. In which case, this needs to be clarified on all three pages. -- LightSpectra (talk) 18:16, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

As a compromise, I'm going to use the source found on the page of the Roman Empire for 5m km², since that appears more reasonable, until you can find another source to substantiate that claim, or clarify the huge discrepancy. Then, we'll put a "disputed" tag on it. Alright? -- LightSpectra (talk) 17:04, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

That's a very strange date, all the sources claim that the empire had around 5 millions km2 at his height, for example in this book of the Oxford university page number 1 http://books.google.com/books?id=ixUePMNx8BkC&pg=PA25&lpg=PA25&dq=size+of+the+roman+empire+square+kilometres&source=bl&ots=bruSfxG-be&sig=pSXnFxro6av6lsC1O4tbsBG0Ah8&hl=es&ei=OqjbSYDCIYmrjAf3wom-CA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4#PPA1,M1 --Bentaguayre (talk) 19:30, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

an undefined term

What is Greek empire? Show me an encyclopaedia that defines it and says explicitly what it was. And wikipedia does not define Macedonian empire either! We have Seleucid empire but that was not what you mean. I am worried that Herodotus is back with fictional numbers.--Xashaiar (talk) 16:24, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

The "Greek empire" shenanigans was vandalism. Ignore it. The Macedonian Empire was created by the conquests of Alexander the Great; I believe after the fractioning of his empire, the Greek part of it just became "Macedon". Correct me if I am wrong. -- LightSpectra (talk) 17:04, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Persian & Roman empire estimates are WRONG.

Rome never surpassed Persia in terms of size. It's well established that at Rome at it's greatest was 5,9 as was the empire of Alexander. Furthermore, it's WRONG TO CALL IT THE GREEK EMPIRE. It was the Macedonian Empire. Furthermore, Sassanid was not 7,4 it was 3,5 during ANCIENT times. It might have rose to 7,4 in medieval times but in Ancient it never surpassed 3,5. Furthermore the Achaemenid Empire was 7,5km2 not 8,4. This article is a joke. And the jackasses who have blocked this shit and doing it themselves are just as stupid as the morons who tampered with the article to start with. For example: it says 23% of world population 35million population on Achaemenid persia. THERE IS NO SOURCE FOR THIS. Last time i checked it said 70-80million and source reference was given. This article needs some serious fixing up. Rome was not bigger than Persia, and you can see that just by looking at two maps in the same ratio compare and see persia & rome both at peak. What pisses me of even more is, on Ancient Empires Rome is listed with 5 km2 at peak. But in list of largest empires of all time it says, Rome 9,1km2 under Trajan approximately 27BC-476 BCE Trajan. Rome was at it's peak territorial size in 117Bc or so under Trajan, my high school book even says so. What is frustrating is that the same empire is listed with two different peak sizes during the same period.

First of all, may I suggest some more sophistication if you would like your criticisms to be taken seriously.

Now, let's take these bit-by-bit. One, I'm aware that Alexander did not control all of Greece, and I will fix this as soon as it's unblocked. Second, obviously this article does lack citations, but you offered none in your own rant. Thirdly, I myself addressed the conflicting sources on the Roman Empire; hence why it's listed as "dubious", because it is unclear why the estimations are so different. Fourthly, "27 BC - 476 BC" is only when the Roman Empire existed, not the height of its power; you're right that the height was during Trajan's reign in 117 (AD, not BC). -- LightSpectra (talk) 20:13, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

A couple of months ago, i provided some info, with citations from several sources on Achaemenid, yet they somehow got removed. My rant is justified. (84.215.32.45 (talk) 14:36, 10 April 2009 (UTC))