Largest Empires in History

Data

Source: Wikipedia — List of largest empires.

Note: What You Should Know About History's Largest Empires

Just what counts as an "empire"?

Most historians define an empire as a large state that rules over many different peoples and territories — usually by conquest — under a single supreme ruler or ruling dynasty. Whatever their exact size at any given moment, every entry on this chart fits that broad definition: each one held sway over a vast, multi-ethnic patch of territory at its peak.

The biggest by area — a quick ranking

• British Empire — the largest empire by land area ever, topping out at roughly 35.5 million km² (about 13.7 million mi²) around 1920.
• Mongol Empire — the largest contiguous land empire in history, at about 24.0 million km² under Kublai Khan's era around 1270.
• Russian Empire — the biggest modern-era land empire at roughly 22.8 million km² by the late 1890s, stretching from Eastern Europe to Alaska.
• Spanish Empire — the first truly global empire, covering about 20.0 million km² at its early-19th-century height.
• Qing Dynasty — the largest of China's many imperial dynasties, reaching about 14.7 million km² by 1790.
• French Colonial Empire — the second-largest colonial empire after Britain, peaking near 13.5 million km² in the late 1930s.
• Abbasid and Umayyad Caliphates — two successive Islamic empires that each spanned about 11.1 million km² across the Middle East, North Africa, and beyond.
• Yuan Dynasty — the Mongol-ruled dynasty over China, close behind at roughly 11.0 million km² during the early 1300s.
• Roman Empire — the smallest on this list by area at about 5.0 million km², yet arguably the most historically influential in the West.

Biggest by population

Area tells only part of the story — a few empires were enormous mainly because of the number of people they governed. The British Empire ruled roughly 23% of the world's population at its peak, around 412 to 458 million people in the early 20th century. China's Qing Dynasty controlled a similarly enormous share of humanity in its day, as did the Roman Empire, which held the majority of the ancient world's known population. The Mughal Empire, the Maurya Empire, and the Soviet Union all feature in the population-versus-area debates too.

Tips for reading this chart

• Figures are maximum extents — every empire rose and fell over time, so these are their biggest moments, not their average size.
• "Peak Year" tells you when each empire reached its greatest area, so you can compare the eras as well as the sizes.
• Overlapping empires means map area isn't the whole picture; a huge area doesn't always equal huge population or influence.
• Sources disagree on exact numbers because defining borders is tricky — treat values as close estimates, not precise measurements.
• The list is ranked by historical maximum area, so modern countries are never counted for comparison.
• Contiguous (unbroken) land empires like the Mongols and Russians are easier to map than overseas colonial empires like Britain's and Spain's.

Fun facts

• At its peak, the British Empire was so large that the sun always shone somewhere within it — hence "the empire on which the sun never sets."
• The Mongol Empire at its height covered so much land that a single rider could cross four modern countries without leaving its borders.
• The Roman Empire lasted about 1,500 years in one form or another — far longer than any of the other big-area empires on this list.
• If all the empires on this chart were laid side by side, their combined peak areas would cover more than half of Earth's total land surface.
• Russia, the modern successor to the Russian Empire, remains the world's largest country by area today — the empire's footprint partly lives on.
• The Spanish Empire was one of the first to see "the sun never set" too, before the British took the title centuries later.