Empire- when one person (monarch) has power over a vast territory inhabited by numerous peoples of different nationalities. This ranking is based on the influence, longevity and power of various empires. The list is based on the assumption that an empire should, most of the time, be ruled by an emperor or king, this excludes the modern so-called empires of the United States and the Soviet Union. Below is a ranking of the ten greatest empires in the world.
At the peak of its power (XVI–XVII), the Ottoman Empire was located on three continents at once, controlling most of Southeast Europe, Western Asia and North Africa. It consisted of 29 provinces and numerous vassal states, some of which were later absorbed into the empire. The Ottoman Empire was at the center of interaction between the eastern and western worlds for six centuries. In 1922, the Ottoman Empire ceased to exist.
The Umayyad Caliphate was the second of four Islamic caliphates (systems of government) created after the death of Muhammad. The empire, under the rule of the Umayyad dynasty, covered more than five million square kilometers, making it one of the largest in the world, as well as the largest Arab-Muslim empire ever created in history.
Persian Empire (Achaemenid)
The Persian Empire basically united all of Central Asia, which consisted of many different cultures, kingdoms, empires, and tribes. It was the largest empire in ancient history. At the peak of its power, the empire covered about 8 million square kilometers.
The Byzantine or Eastern Roman Empire was part of the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages. The permanent capital and civilizational center of the Byzantine Empire was Constantinople. During its existence (more than a thousand years), the empire remained one of the most powerful economic, cultural and military forces in Europe despite setbacks and losses of territory, especially during the Roman-Persian and Byzantine-Arab wars. The Empire received its death blow in 1204 with the Fourth Crusade.
The Han Dynasty is considered a golden age in Chinese history in terms of scientific achievements, technological progress, economic, cultural and political stability. Even to this day, most Chinese call themselves Han people. Today, the Han Chinese are considered the largest ethnic group in the world. The dynasty ruled China for almost 400 years.
The British Empire covered more than 13 million square kilometers, roughly equivalent to about a quarter of our planet's land area. The empire's population was approximately 480 million people (approximately one-fourth of humanity). The British Empire is by far one of the most influential empires to ever exist in human history.
During the Middle Ages, the Holy Roman Empire was considered the "superpower" of its time. It consisted of eastern France, all of Germany, northern Italy and part of western Poland. It was officially dissolved on August 6, 1806, after which there appeared: Switzerland, Holland, the Austrian Empire, Belgium, the Prussian Empire, the principalities of Liechtenstein, the Confederation of the Rhine and the first French Empire.
The Russian Empire existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution in 1917. She was the heir to the kingdom of Russia, and the forerunner of the Soviet Union. The Russian Empire was the third largest state that ever existed, second only to the British and Mongol empires.
It all started when Temujin (later known as Genghis Khan, considered one of the most brutal rulers in history), vowed in his youth to bring the world to its knees. The Mongol Empire was the largest contiguous empire in human history. The capital of the state was the city of Karakorum. The Mongols were fearless and ruthless warriors, but they had little experience in ruling such a vast territory and the Mongol Empire quickly fell.
Ancient Rome made major contributions to the development of law, art, literature, architecture, technology, religion and language in the Western world. In fact, many historians consider the Roman Empire to be the "ideal empire" because it was powerful, fair, long-lasting, large, well-defended, and economically advanced. The calculation showed that from its foundation to its fall, a whopping 2214 years passed. From this it follows that the Roman Empire is the greatest empire of the ancient world.
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Over the past 3 thousand years, the Old World has seen the rise and fall of powerful empires, and their history and past glory could not but influence the culture of the countries and peoples that today occupy the spaces where they dominated. The ruins of large cities, majestic palaces and temples, remaining after the collapse of great civilizations - Persia and the Mediterranean - eloquently testify to the wealth, splendor and power of great empires. Remains of fortresses and roads, palaces and canals, codes of laws carved on rocks and written down on paper, and praises of triumphants tell how they achieved military power, with the help of which they subjugated more and more new territories and maintained control and administration over vast colonies. Ancient empires are significantly different from each other in terms of their existence, differ in size and cultural traditions, but they all have some common features.
What is an empire
Which ancient states can be called empires? Of course, not only the title of the ruler and the official, declared name of the country can serve as the basis for such a division. But still, let’s try to look deeper into the essence of things and understand how they differ from other states. And it doesn’t matter who is in power: the emperor, the senate, the national assembly or a religious figure. The main thing that distinguishes the empire is its supranational character. A republic, despotism, or kingdom become an empire only when they go beyond the state formation of any one people or tribe and unite many cultures and peoples at different stages of development.
Map of the Old World in the 1st century. BC.
It is no coincidence that their era began in the countries of the Old World at approximately the same time, and it is no coincidence that this time is usually called the era of axial civilizations.
It begins at the turn of the 2nd and 1st millennia BC. e. and covers the period before the start of the Great Migration, which put an end to the greatest of. Of course, this provision is quite conditional. The first empires arose earlier than this designated period of time, and some of them survived its end.
It is enough to give just two examples. Egypt of the era of the New Kingdom, i.e. the second half of the 2nd millennium BC. e., can rightfully open a long list of the greatest empires of antiquity. It was during this period that the country of the pharaohs stepped over the boundaries of its national civilization. During this era, Nubia, the legendary “country of Punt” in the south, the flourishing cities and palaces of the Levant were conquered, and the nomadic tribes of the Libyan Desert were conquered and pacified. All these areas were not only forced to recognize, but were included in the economic system, the administrative structure of the country of the pharaohs, and experienced cultural influences from it. Later rulers of Nubia and even Ethiopia traced their ancestry back to the godlike rulers of the Nile.
The Byzantine Empire, the direct successor of ancient Rome, continued officially, and the people were called Romans, i.e. Romans, retained the attributes of empire and multinational character until its death in the middle of the 15th century. And the Ottoman Empire that took its place, with all its dissimilarity from Rome and Byzantium, inherited and preserved many of their traditions and, first of all, remained faithful to the imperial idea for many centuries.
But still, we will dwell on the era when they were just emerging, gaining strength and were at the zenith of their strength.
During this period, i.e. in the 1st millennium BC. e., powerful empires stretched in a wide strip along the geographic latitude from the Strait of Gibraltar in the west to the shores of the Yellow Sea in the east. The strip along which the power of empires spread was limited from the north and south by natural barriers: deserts, forests, seas and mountains.
But not only these barriers caused their formation along this axis. This is where the Old World is: Cretan-Mycenaean, Egyptian, Sumerian, Indus, Chinese. They set the stage for future empires: they created urban networks, built the first roads, and created the first sea routes that linked cities together. created and improved writing, the administrative apparatus, and the army. They discovered new ways of accumulating wealth and improved old ones. It was in this zone that all the achievements of mankind were concentrated, necessary for the emergence of a full-fledged state, their successful growth and development.
In this series of predecessors and heirs stands the Phoenician colonies of the Mediterranean, on the foundation of which arose the Roman Empire, the powers of the Assyrians, Babylonians, Medes and Persians of the Middle East, the Buddhist empires of the Indo-Aryans of the Ganges Valley and the Kushans, the empires of China.
The New World later, but also went this way from the “classical” urban civilizations of Teotihuacan to the Aztec empire and from the ancient prosperous cultures of the Andean highlands.
Having rallied many tribes and peoples around themselves, they not only successfully applied all the achievements of past centuries, but also created many new things, which distinguishes them from earlier civilizations. Of course, the great empires of antiquity were very different from each other in terms of traditions, forms of expression of their imperial spirit, and destinies. But there is also something that allows you to put them side by side. It was this “something” that gave us the right to call them all in one word - empires. What is this?
Firstly, as already said, all empires- These are supranational entities. And for the effective management of vast spaces with different cultural traditions, religions and ways of life, appropriate institutions and means are needed. With all the variety of approaches to solving the problem of management, they were all based on the same principles: a rigid hierarchy, the inviolability of central authority and, of course, uninterrupted communication between the center and the periphery.
Secondly, it must effectively defend its extensive borders from external enemies, and moreover, in order to confirm its exclusive right to rule many peoples, it must constantly grow. That is why in all empires war and military affairs received exceptional development and occupied a significant place in everyday life and ideology. As it turned out, militarization also became a weak point of almost all empires: changes of rulers, rebellions and the fall of provinces rarely took place without the participation of the military, both in Rome, in the extreme west of the civilized world of the Old World, and in China, in its extreme east.
And thirdly, neither effective governance nor military power are capable of ensuring the stability of any empire without ideological support. It could be a new religion, a real or legendary historical tradition, or, finally, a certain unification of culture, allowing one to contrast oneself, one’s belonging to a civilized empire, with the surrounding barbarians. But the latter soon became the same.
Map of the Roman Empire
At the height of the Roman Empire, its rule extended over vast territories - their total area was about 6.51 million square kilometers. However, in the list of the largest empires in history, the Roman Empire ranks only nineteenth.
What do you think, which one is the first?
The largest empire in the world in history
Mongolian
294 (21.8 % )
Russian
213 (15.8 % )
Spanish
48 (3.6 % )
British
562 (41.6 % )
Mongolian
118 (8.7 % )
Turkic Khaganate
18 (1.3 % )
Japanese
5 (0.4 % )
Arab Caliphate
18 (1.3 % )
Macedonian
74 (5.5 % )
Now we find out the correct answer...
Thousands of years of human existence have passed under the sign of wars and expansions. Great states arose, grew and collapsed, which changed (and some continue to change) the face of the modern world.
An empire is the most powerful type of state, where various countries and peoples are united under the rule of a single monarch (emperor). Let's look at the ten largest empires that have ever appeared on the world stage. Oddly enough, in our list you will not find either the Roman, or the Ottoman, or even the empire of Alexander the Great - history has seen more.
10. Arab Caliphate
Population: -
State area: - 6.7
Capital: 630-656 Medina / 656 - 661 Mecca / 661 - 754 Damascus / 754 - 762 Al-Kufa / 762 - 836 Baghdad / 836 - 892 Samarra / 892 - 1258 Baghdad
Beginning of rule: 632
Fall of an Empire: 1258
The existence of this empire marked the so-called. “The Golden Era of Islam” - the period from the 7th to the 13th centuries AD. e. The caliphate was founded immediately after the death of the creator of the Muslim faith, Muhammad in 632, and the Medina community founded by the prophet became its core. Centuries of Arab conquests increased the area of the empire to 13 million square meters. km, covering territories in all three parts of the Old World. By the middle of the 13th century, the Caliphate, torn apart by internal conflicts, was so weakened that it was easily captured first by the Mongols and then by the Ottomans, the founders of another great Central Asian empire.
9. Japanese Empire
Population: 97,770,000
State area: 7.4 million km2
Capital: Tokyo
Beginning of rule: 1868
Fall of the Empire: 1947
Japan is the only empire on the modern political map. Now this status is rather formal, but 70 years ago it was Tokyo that was the main center of imperialism in Asia. Japan, an ally of the Third Reich and fascist Italy, then tried to establish control over the western coast of the Pacific Ocean, sharing a vast front with the Americans. This time marked the peak of the territorial scope of the empire, which controlled almost the entire maritime space and 7.4 million square meters. km of land from Sakhalin to New Guinea.
8. Portuguese Empire
Population: 50 million (480 BC) / 35 million (330 BC)
State area: - 10.4 million km2
Capital: Coimbra, Lisbon
Since the 16th century, the Portuguese have been looking for ways to break Spanish isolation on the Iberian Peninsula. In 1497, they discovered a sea route to India, which marked the beginning of the expansion of the Portuguese colonial empire. Three years earlier, the Treaty of Tordesillas was concluded between the “sworn neighbors,” which actually divided the then-known world between the two countries, on unfavorable terms for the Portuguese. But this did not stop them from collecting more than 10 million square meters. km of land, most of which was occupied by Brazil. The handover of Macau to the Chinese in 1999 ended Portugal's colonial history.
7. Turkic Khaganate
Area - 13 million km2
one of the largest ancient states in Asia in the history of mankind, created by a tribal union of Turks (Turkuts) led by rulers from the Ashina clan. During the period of greatest expansion (end of the 6th century) it controlled the territories of China (Manchuria), Mongolia, Altai, East Turkestan, West Turkestan (Central Asia), Kazakhstan and the North Caucasus. In addition, the tributaries of the Kaganate were Sasanian Iran, the Chinese states of Northern Zhou, Northern Qi from 576, and from the same year the Turkic Kaganate seized the Northern Caucasus and Crimea from Byzantium.
6. French Empire
Population: -
State area: 13.5 million square meters. km
Capital: Paris
Beginning of rule: 1546
Fall of the Empire: 1940
France became the third European power (after Spain and Portugal) to become interested in the overseas territories. Since 1546, the time of the founding of New France (now Quebec, Canada), the formation of Francophonie in the world began. Having lost the American confrontation with the Anglo-Saxons, and also inspired by the conquests of Napoleon, the French occupied almost all of West Africa. In the middle of the twentieth century, the area of the empire reached 13.5 million square meters. km, more than 110 million people lived in it. By 1962, most of the French colonies had become independent states.
Chinese Empire
5. Chinese Empire (Qing Empire)
Population: 383,100,000 people
State area: 14.7 million km2
Capital: Mukden (1636–1644), Beijing (1644–1912)
Beginning of rule: 1616
Fall of the Empire: 1912
The most ancient empire of Asia, the cradle of oriental culture. The first Chinese dynasties ruled from the 2nd millennium BC. e., but a unified empire was created only in 221 BC. e. During the reign of the Qing, the last monarchical dynasty of the Celestial Empire, the empire occupied a record area of 14.7 million square meters. km. This is 1.5 times more than the modern Chinese state, mainly due to Mongolia, now independent. In 1911, the Xinhai Revolution broke out, putting an end to the monarchical system in China, turning the empire into a republic.
4. Spanish Empire
Population: 60 million
State area: 20,000,000 km2
Capital: Toledo (1492-1561) / Madrid (1561-1601) / Valladolid (1601-1606) / Madrid (1606-1898)
Fall of the Empire: 1898
The period of world domination of Spain began with the voyages of Columbus, which opened new horizons for Catholic missionary work and territorial expansion. In the 16th century, almost the entire Western Hemisphere was “at the feet” of the Spanish king with his “invincible armada.” It was at this time that Spain was called “the country where the sun never sets,” because its possessions covered a seventh of the land (about 20 million sq. km) and almost half of the sea routes in all corners of the planet. The greatest empires of the Incas and Aztecs fell to the conquistadors, and in their place a predominantly Spanish-speaking Latin America emerged.
3. Russian Empire
Population: 60 million
Population: 181.5 million (1916)
State area: 23,700,000 km2
Capital: St. Petersburg, Moscow
Fall of the Empire: 1917
The largest continental monarchy in human history. Its roots reach back to the times of the Moscow principality, then the kingdom. In 1721, Peter I proclaimed the imperial status of Russia, which owned vast territories from Finland to Chukotka. At the end of the 19th century, the state reached its geographical apogee: 24.5 million square meters. km, about 130 million inhabitants, over 100 ethnic groups and nationalities. Russian possessions at one time included the lands of Alaska (before its sale by the Americans in 1867), as well as part of California.
2. Mongol Empire
Population: more than 110,000,000 people (1279)
State area: 38,000,000 sq. km. (1279)
Capital: Karakorum, Khanbalik
Beginning of rule: 1206
Fall of the Empire: 1368
The greatest empire of all times and peoples, whose raison d'être was one thing - war. The Great Mongolian State was formed in 1206 under the leadership of Genghis Khan, expanding over several decades to 38 million square meters. km, from the Baltic Sea to Vietnam, killing every tenth inhabitant of the Earth. By the end of the 13th century, its Uluses covered a quarter of the land and a third of the planet's population, which then numbered almost half a billion people. The ethnopolitical framework of modern Eurasia was formed on the fragments of the empire.
1. British Empire
Population: 458,000,000 people (approximately 24% of the world's population in 1922)
State area: 42.75 km2 (1922)
Capital London
Beginning of rule: 1497
Fall of the Empire: 1949 (1997)
The British Empire is the largest state that has ever existed in the history of mankind, with colonies on all inhabited continents.
Over the 400 years of its formation, it withstood competition for world domination with other “colonial titans”: France, Holland, Spain, Portugal. During its heyday, London controlled a quarter of the world's landmass (over 34 million sq. km) on all inhabited continents, as well as vast expanses of ocean. Formally, it still exists in the form of the Commonwealth, and countries such as Canada and Australia actually remain subject to the British crown.
The international status of the English language is the main legacy of Pax Britannica.
Something else interesting for you from history: remember, or for example. Here you go. maybe you didn't know that there was
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