Talk:List of largest empires

Why is Karkota Empire in the list?

I fail to see why Karkota Empire, a very small empire is in the list and at a very high position. The area of this empire is a mere 3km square and is mentioned in the article here: Karkoṭa Empire

Kindly make the changes and remove it from the list.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.248.163.3 (talk) 10:30, 17 June 2015‎ (UTC)

Not an improvement

Lately I made some changes mostly to the table's format, and to the introductory text, this being the result. But TompaDompa considered it "not an improvement" and reverted it to this state. I'd like to hear some other editors' opinion on the merit of my revision, which was not about content but about format and ultimately look and easy of data access, having made some columns sortable. I consider my revision much better than the preceding, but I may be wrong, and to ascertain where I stay and cut that dilemma, I need a larger feedback. It's about efficiency and usefulness of my time management. Thanks in advance for your contributions. Carlotm (talk) 08:56, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

I'll try to explain in more detail why I thought it wasn't an improvement.

• The table:
  • As far as looks go, the revised table is not as compact as the old one, and the cells are not of uniform height. To me, that just looks ugly (especially the latter).
  • The table was intentionally not sortable. There were several reasons for this. There's no need to have the names of the empires sortable alphabetically, the table was already sorted by area/percentage (same thing, really), and sorting by year of greatest extent gets kind of misleading – the empire in question wasn't necessarily the biggest empire in the world that year just because it was the year it was the biggest (it doesn't provide a timeline of largest empires, which might've been of some value).
  • The span/duration is perhaps of interest, but should not be added without great care being taken to ensure we have both a strict, consistent definition and high-quality sources.
  • The changes to the footnotes go against the previously established style on this article, and combining several sources into a single footnote like that doesn't really work that great for this list (when sometimes one is used, sometimes the other, and sometimes both – better to keep them separate then).
• The text:
  • Removing the headings makes the non-list part of the article just a number of paragraphs, which I'd argue works against navigation and readability. It also discourages further expansion of the article (for instance: the article has had sections about economy and population before, but they were removed because of poor sourcing – if we find good sources, we'll probably want to add them back).
  • The changes in phrasing were mostly neither better nor worse than the previous versions, with some exceptions.

I hope this clarified my reasoning better than the edit reason did. TompaDompa (talk) 10:49, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

Semi-Protected Status

Should this page be semi-protected (only registered users with certain number of edits can make changes)? I've noticed that most of the edits are non-registered users simply switching rankings without citing sources and then people undoing those revisions. Jlr3001 (talk) 22:04, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

Seems like overkill to me. The vandalism you mention is persistent, sure, but still relatively infrequent. TompaDompa (talk) 22:38, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

Not enough empires

The list should extend further to at least the top 100. Bajirao1007 (talk) 09:55, 14 July 2017 (UTC)

"For context, note that the total land area of the Earth is 148,940,000 km2 (57,500,000 sq mi). This is a list of empires whose greatest extent exceeded 2% of that area." --Wario-Man (talk) 15:05, 14 July 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I'm aware of that but is there any reason to put the limit at 2%? I'm asking why shouldn't it be extended to at least the top 100? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bajirao1007 (talk • contribs) 00:57, 15 July 2017 (UTC)

The Macedonian Empire

Macedonia conquered Greece and the Achaemenid Empire. It is not supposed to be smaller than the Achaemenid Empire.--Maxaxax (talk) 14:56, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

@Maxaxax:

"A superimposition of the maps of Achaemenid and Alexander's empires shows a 90% match, except that Alexander's realm never reached the peak size of the Achaemenid realm. Alexander was not an empire-founder but an empire-seizer who arrested the decline of the Iranian empire for a few years."

Rein Taagepera, 1979.NightD 09:18, 8 August 2017 (UTC)

French Empires

Is there a consensus on the two French Empires? With this IP-hopper blatantly combing both empires, I don't know what else to do, except I already have the article submitted at RPP. jd22292 (Jalen D. Folf) (talk) 22:00, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

Year for maximum extent of The Mongol Empire

Patrick Johnstone "The Future of the Global Church: History, Trends and Possiblities"

p. 46 "(In) 1217 Chengis Khan died, having divided his empire among his four sons: in the west, Hulegu founded the Ilkhanate in Persia, Balu the Golden Horde in E Europe and Chagatai his eponymous empire in C Asia - all later became Muslim; in the east, Kublai founded the Yuan dynasty of China, which was Buddist. The Mongol Empire was effectually divided in 1259, though it reached its maximum extent in 1279 under Kublai Khan".109.106.142.237 (talk) 12:44, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

Muslim empire inconsistencies

I'm looking at Umayyad750ADloc.png and Abbasids850.png and I for the life of me can't figure out how both of these empires would be exactly the same size with exactly the same population. This article takes them from 720 and 750, while the images choose 750 and 850 as their peaks. Which is right here? Bataaf van Oranje (Prinsgezinde) (talk) 19:00, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

IP socks of indeffed sockmaster "Chanakya Volume 2"

Just for the record. These IPs (i.e. 68.33.73.79, 68.33.76.180) are all IP socks of CU blocked sockmaster Chanakya Volume 2. - LouisAragon (talk) 15:43, 23 September 2017 (UTC)

Highly Biased Methodology - list needs major revision

TLDR: The current estimates takes the most generous possible view of the western Empires (British/Spanish/Portuguese/Brazil), while taking a completely illogical (Mongols) or much less generous view of the Asian Empires (Mongols/Timurids/Tang/more?).

I believe given the previous comments on the talk pages that it has been agreed to use the largest peak size for the empire, which has of course been done for the British. Thus it does not make any sense that either of the two used dates for the Mongol Empire's greatest extent would be in 1270 or 1309. In 1270 the Mongols had not yet defeated the Song Dynasty below the Yangtze river (1279 marked the full subjugation year), who controlled almost a third of China, while 1309 was after the devastating reverse the Mongols suffered at battle of marj al saffar in 1303. Neither of these dates makes any sense to anyone who has a basic knowledge of Mongol history and thus completely invalidates the 24km^2 estimate. An estimation of 1279 (after the Song conquest) or 1287 (after the conquest of Burma) are much more logical. Estimates floating around the internet pinpoint the Mongol Empire size at 1279 at 33km^2, so I will temporarily fill that in the article, though it should be no more than a placeholder since 1287 is more appropriate of a date and due to the problems below.

Secondly, the Empire size for the western and asian empires do not use the same methodology based on their claimed sizes: the sources cited are poorly descriptive of their methodology, but by checking general maps on the internet of these 'empires' and comparing them logically, the inconsistencies are clear. The British Empire size of 35.3km^2 undoubtedly includes western Australia and Northern Canada. Yet almost nobody lived in these locations, almost nobody besides explorers went there, and it wasn't effectively ruled in an era before motorized travel. The British estimate appears to also include even areas they held only nominal/vassal control over. The Russian Empire estimate of 22km^2 includes parts of the arctic climate in the north/northeast that also was almost uninhibited and not regularly traveled to. Ditto for the Portuguese Empire including parts of the Amazon rainforest in western brazil that is not currently inhabited today, or the Spanish Empire including the deserts of the southwest U.S. Thus by using these estimates, we are taking a very extreme definition of territory controlled: areas nominally 'held' but hardly administered since almost nobody lived there, and far too remote for tax collectors to regularly travel to. If that is the overall approach, that is fine and it fits with the stated approach of "size as the area over which the empire has some undisputed military and taxation prerogatives." However, it is definitely not being applied to the central asian/asian empires.

Logically then, if we take the most generous interpretation of a territory in terms of military and taxation prerogatives, the Mongol Empire must also include the entirety of Northern Russia, since they administered as much effective control over that wasteland as the British, Spanish, and Portuguese did of their wastelands. We do know from sources that the Mongols did occasionally march north into Siberia (north of Lake Baikal) to defeat the Tumad and other 'forest peoples', and did effectively demand tribute from them in addition to putting down revolts. How far north they traveled, and who lived there, is a question we cannot answer, no more than we can answer how many people of the eastern Amazon rainforest the Portuguese controlled in their empire. But there was certainly no organized opposition contesting Mongol dominion of northern Siberia or the Russian Far East, just like there was no opposition to the undisputed prerogatives the British had over the Western Australian desert. I do not have the tools required to make a proper estimate using this rubric, so I implore others who do to help.

For a second example, Tamerlane, founder of the Timurid Empire listed at just 4.4km^2, actually defeated the armies, received submissions from (or executed) the leaders, and annexed the territories of the Golden Horde in Russia/Central Asia, as well as the Sultanate of Delhi in Northern India, and the Ottoman Empire in Anatolia. It is not possible that if one includes even half the territory of these three Empires in addition to what was indisputably Timurid in the Middle East, that one ends up anywhere near 4.4km^2. It likely would be between 50%-100% greater.

Given these gross inconsistencies I spotted, I think it is likely that there are other errors for the other empires. That unfortunately goes out of my area of expertise and would appreciate others who to help check and correct.

73.247.69.66 (talk) 02:48, 26 September 2017 (UTC)Baldwin