Talk:List of largest empires

Empires with sourced areas but without dates

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

• Ashanti Empire: 100,000 square miles
• Balhae: 438,000 km²
• Đại Cồ Việt: 110,000 km²
• Durrani Empire: 780,000 square miles/2,000,000 km²
• Dzungar Khanate: 3,600,000 km² – since added using this source which provides the same figure and the year 1650. TompaDompa (talk) 03:03, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
• Nguyễn dynasty: 370,000 km²
• Southern Qi: 2,147,000 km²
• Phoenicia: 250,000 square miles
• Vijayanagara Empire: 360,000 km²
• Wari Empire: 320,000 km²
• Wuhuan: 400,000 km²
• Xianbei state: 4,500,000 km² – since added using this source which provides the same figure and the year 200. TompaDompa (talk) 03:03, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

References

American Empire & Pax Americana

In line with the question above, where the fuck is the American Empire?

If you have military bases in nearly 200 countries are they not tributary states? If this Empire regularly removes elected leaders in these tributary states (Lula in Brazil for instance, or the folks in Ecuador, Bolivia, Ukraine), if all the global currencies are based off your currency and are just derivatives, what are you if you are not an Empire? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.129.59.31 (talk) 13:52, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

Agreed. This page needs to include the American Empire on its list, however the lead's narrow definition of an empire makes that tricky. This page defines an empire as essentially a state that controls other states, which the US no longer (openly) does. The U.S. was definitely an empire in the past with its colonialism and imperialism, and this list includes colonial empires like the Dutch, French, Portuguese, Spanish, German, Italian, etc. so this should fall under the same category and be included. Also the US is the closest thing to an empire today with its hard and soft power. (It has nearly 40% of global military spending, that alone should be enough for inclusion. Only China comes anywhere close with 13%). See United States involvement in regime change, American Century, Pax Americana, and List of countries by military expenditures. Duey (talk) 09:25, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

Agreed, but is it going to be added soon? History of the Burmese (talk) 06:43, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

Even without taking into account all of the additional factors involved in realistically measuring the influence of U.S. imperialism, the height of its official territorial holdings still constitute admission to this list. In 1899, it spanned 3.78 million square miles, or 9.79 million square kilometers. As others have said, it could be argued that its level of imperialism extends much further if you consider its spheres of influence, but considering the complexity of determining a hard number for such an abstract concept, it may not apply to this list, but that doesn't detract from the formal numbers I stated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.188.250.214 (talk) 15:08, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Whether the US should be included has been discussed as far back as 2006, and has been discussed many, many, many, many, many, many times since (non-exhaustive list of previous discussions). I'm not entirely sure (I haven't carefully read all of those discussions), but I believe that the exclusion of the US was based on WP:CONSENSUS among editors that it didn't belong. Of course, WP:Consensus can change and now seems to be in favour of inclusion. It is also worth noting that there have been quite dramatic changes to the general "design" (for lack of a better word) of the article over the years—one of which is that the WP:LEAD now defines an empire as "any relatively large sovereign political entity whose components are not sovereign"—so previous discussions might not be entirely reflective of current considerations. I'll add the US to the list. Perhaps adding it will cause those who oppose its inclusion to join the discussion here, or maybe it'll be uncontroversial. We'll see. TompaDompa (talk) 23:13, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Disagree. Should we add the current Russia? China? Canada? It doesn't make sense to include the USA if we are not including other large nations, some of which are significantly larger or at least comparable in size. Dazaif (talk) 03:03, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

A case could be made that present-day Russia is the successor to the USSR which is in turn the successor to the Russian Empire, and that Russia is thus already listed at a greater extent than it currently has. A similar argument can be made for China. Our main source, Taagepera, takes this approach—Taagepera considers the Russian Empire, the USSR, and modern-day Russia to be a single continuous entity, and does likewise with China from the Qing dynasty to the present day (how Taagepera determines whether to consider them distinct or continuous can be read in this paper of his—in summary, he says two successive empires with the same core location are said to be distinct only when the gap between them lasts longer than 30% of the first empire's duration, but there are some details to get into if one is interested in such matters). It's worth noting that we don't list the current size of the US—we list the size at its peak territorial extent, which was back in 1899.

As for Canada, well, maybe we should include it. I'll direct your attention to the points I made a year ago at Talk:List of largest empires/Archive 9#American empire - again. TompaDompa (talk) 23:49, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

What a crazy list right?

Since WP:CheckUser blocked, see block log. TompaDompa (talk) 17:13, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Estonian politician? But I don't think he understand history, because the numbers are not in accordance with what is studied in college, I think that instead of finding secondary sources of politicians, it should focus, what the documents say, written by people from times of each empire, and of course there are a variety of ancient maps and land names, which say the conquests more accurately, what do you think about that? if this is not based on the conquest of land, it is based on what? The list starts badly when you say ""Empire size in this list is defined as the dry land area it controlled at the time, which may differ considerably from the area it claimed. For example: in the year 1800, European powers collectively claimed approximately 20% of the Earth's land surface that they did not effectively control.[8] Where estimates vary, entries are sorted by the lowest estimate."" Right from the start by denying the historical facts, do you mean that the nations all lied and that historians too, is that it? would like a conclusive answer on your part, I'm new here, and I see this and I couldn't resist commenting, sorry. But I have read very good articles on wikipedia, but this list clearly needs a good correction, or a good justification, because it denies all the facts of the story, which diminishes the credibility of those who will read it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:8A0:FE8F:8B00:18BD:5CF0:7C7A:14E9 (talk) 22:28, 25 November 2020 (UTC) That's political scientist as well as politician, and the former is more relevant here. Moreover, Wikipedia actually prefers WP:SECONDARY sources. This is in contrast to academics, who mostly use WP:PRIMARY sources (at least when possible). TompaDompa (talk) 22:46, 26 November 2020 (UTC) Thanks for the clarification, now I understand why academics are only allowed to use some sources from wikipedia, and never use wikipedia as a direct reference. (2001:8A0:FE8F:8B00:FD22:45FB:5456:5147 (talk) 13:07, 27 November 2020 (UTC))

Portuguese Empire the black sheep on this list ?

Since WP:CheckUser blocked, see block log. TompaDompa (talk) 17:13, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Only the Portuguese Empire, which was one of the largest in the world, is the black sheep on this list, my God what a disappointment, if it were removed from the list it would be better, even more divided into 3, the Portuguese empire started in 1415 with the conquest of Ceuta , and then conquered almost all of Africa, which used to be Arabs, and then Asia, Brazil and so on. the country that saved Europe from the slavery of the Arabs, is very poorly portrayed in this list, there is a lack here of someone who has specific knowledge for each empire, because here on the discussion page it is only people complaining that something is wrong here. (2001:8A0:FE8F:8B00:38B5:1E7B:9A2A:53FE (talk) 01:24, 19 December 2020 (UTC))

Portuguese Empire - Again

There's alot of maps of Brazil before independence , some of the maps are contemporary and some are from the 19th century (made in the 19th century but about the size of the portuguese empire in that region before independence) that showcases the size of the land owned by the portuguese in that region. This lands added to the other portuguese territories would clearly give the Portuguese Empire at the time a size of more than 5.5 million km2, more than 8 million km2 and maybe more than 9 million km2.

https://collections.leventhalmap.org/search/commonwealth:6t053s188 https://archive.org/stream/recenseamento1920intro/RecenGeraldoBrasil1920_v1_Introduccao#page/n429/mode/1up https://en.calameo.com/read/00289932775e3ad6157fc?authid=Y02chZI68oDw (pag 139) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mapa_Geografico_de_America_Meridional_(1790).jpg (Mapa Geografico de America Meridional, dispuesto y gravado por D. Juan de la Cruz Cano y Olmedilla, Geogfo. Pensdo. de S.M. Individuo de la R. Academia de Sn. Fernando, y da la Sociedad Bascongada de los Amigos del Pais, teniendo presentes Varios Mapas y noticias originales con arreglo a Observaciones astronómicas ( Año 1775.) Londres, Publicado por William Faden, Geografo del Rey, y del Principe de Gales, Enero 1 de 1799.) - Made by William Faden (contemporary cartographer). Ygglow (talk) 02:17, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

Are you familiar with Wikipedia policies on original research? We can't study documents and come to our own conclusions on facts. We must (see WP:42), summarise conclusions from quality third party independent sources. Posting source maps here is unfortunately of no use to this article. Britishfinance (talk) 02:27, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

All I see here is an article being based around the work of one person, so one source, WP:1R. Multiple authors define empires and its land sizes in different ways, the main editor is using Rein's definition because it "allows" him to make a list since he is using a secondary source and it's related to the subject, however, I still consider it insufficient and more sources on every single empire's land size should be used, until then we should refrain from making this article as it is not notable enough. WP:GNG - It has not received significant coverage. Ygglow (talk) 17:26, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

Are you going to dispute anything I said here, TompaDompa or Britishfinance? Ygglow (talk) 17:49, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

The idea that this topic is not WP:Notable is certainly a novel one, and to my eye so obviously incorrect (just based on the sources on the article itself as well as the talk page) that I'm rather surprised that anyone would make that argument. If that's the conclusion you've come to based on your assessment of the existence of sources per WP:BEFORE, however, the proper venue to make that argument is WP:AfD. Notability has not really been discussed in-depth in any of the previous AfD discussions, so it's not like it would be relitigating something that has already been settled. That is to say that I don't think a WP:DELREASON#8 nomination could be considered vexatious, but I do think it would be misguided. It is of course ultimately up to you whether you decide to nominate the article for deletion on these grounds or not. TompaDompa (talk) 07:42, 14 April 2021 (UTC)

Since WP:CheckUser blocked, see block log. TompaDompa (talk) 17:13, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

@Britishfinance: Sorry but only historians understand history, Rein Taagepera is not a Historian is a Estonian politician who studied in Morocco, totally unreasonable, even more unwise to make a list almost entirely with his sources, with so much historian and scientist out there, nobody will believe this list because it denies the story itself. What does a politician understand about history? nothing. I advise you find serious and reliable sources of history for this article to avoid future problems, and if the article is called "list of largest empires", when they have empires with 0.6, it is absurd, i advise to insert only the biggest empires and not all empires, because otherwise it would not have the names "list of largest empires", about the Portuguese empire an easy search is enough to know that there is no other source with this measure, this is the only source with this measure of the Portuguese empire, if you want a more famous scientist and politician, I know others more famous than Rein Taagepera and who did studies on empires, even Rein Taagepera himself doubted that measure he put in ???. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:8A0:FE8F:8B00:8C64:32E1:EDF2:57D1 (talk) 14:04, 14 January 2021 (UTC) If you have better quality sources on the consistent ranking of largest empires, please list them here for consideration. Britishfinance (talk) 20:31, 16 January 2021 (UTC) @Britishfinance: Yes I know 2 good books from the University of Oxford, which has the measure and extension of empires by date, it is a general study of empires, and it talks about each empire, is undoubtedly very complete. They explain each empire by Territory, Population and Distribution, and the book have lists of the greatest empires and their dates. Volume 1 and Volume 2. https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-oxford-world-history-of-empire-9780197533970?lang=en&cc=en;for this list, I think that the information from volume 1, arrives well.(2001:8A0:FE8F:8B00:F0:6B8E:6974:7F52 (talk) 01:43, 17 January 2021 (UTC)) The Oxford World History of Empire: Volume One: The Imperial Experience uses Taagepera as its source for the area though, as seen here. TompaDompa (talk) 02:16, 17 January 2021 (UTC) I see this a lot with this article, when a decent RS is produced, Taagepra is really its source? However, TompaDompa, should we incorporate such RS into into the article, and how they use Taagepra as their source? Britishfinance (talk) 11:43, 17 January 2021 (UTC) I don't know, did you have any particular way of doing so in mind? TompaDompa (talk) 13:44, 17 January 2021 (UTC) Maybe have a separate intro section on the sourcing of this (not just the lede), expanding out the other sources that really use Taagepra's work? A while back I looked for non-Taagepra sources that did an apples-to-apples ranking of empires, and could not find any? The ones I thought were seperate, actually came from Taagepra? Britishfinance (talk) 00:11, 18 January 2021 (UTC)reply That could work, but we would have to be careful not to create a WP:COATRACK. I'll have to think about it before I decide whether I think it's a good idea. TompaDompa (talk) 01:18, 18 January 2021 (UTC) @Britishfinance::@TompaDompa: They use Taagepera source, in addition they use other sources also, but you want a source that does not include Taagepera, is that it? Several authors use the Taagepera source, to rectify the source as Taagepera are not sure about the areas of some empires, just as Taagepera himself uses sources from other authors in his study, each author has their own opinion, it's just a matter of believing or not in the study, what do you have in mind to rectify some areas of some empires ?, in my opinion it would be advantageous to put other sources to complete some empires, it can become a more relaxed article in terms of discussion, which would cause less editing and disputes on the part of general users.(2001:8A0:FE8F:8B00:F0:6B8E:6974:7F52 (talk) 16:11, 17 January 2021 (UTC)) Having taken a closer look, I see that some modifications drawn from more recent scholarship have been made (see page 91). Specifically, they come from "Cioffi-Revilla, Rogers, Wilcox and Alterman 2011, 103, table 1" (i.e. this source) and "Etemad 2007, 134–187" (i.e. this source). These are both somewhat dubious for the purposes of this list as the former does not provide the year (singular, not plural) for which the respective area estimates apply and the latter doesn't attempt to find the maximum extents for the empires but rather compares different empires at a few specified years such as 1760, 1830, and 1880. At any rate, I have added the estimates that differ from the ones already on the list. However, I'm not convinced that The Oxford World History of Empire should be considered an equal-quality source to Taagepera and Turchin (et al.), since it is a WP:TERTIARY source with some dubious ways of synthesizing the area figures whereas the others are peer-reviewed scientific WP:SECONDARY articles about the areas. TompaDompa (talk) 19:10, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

What is a largest empire

Is there an inclusion criteria, as this seems to just be a list of empire by size?Slatersteven (talk) 11:45, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

That's pretty much it. As for the "largest" part, we used to have a threshold for inclusion corresponding to 2% of the world's total land area, but it was removed in 2018 following discussion about whether requiring a minimum area to be listed was appropriate. As for the "empire" part, that's something that has never really been resolved (though the WP:LEAD currently presents a definition by Rein Taagepera). If you're interested, I elaborated a bit on both these issues about a year ago, see Talk:List of largest empires/Archive 9#American empire - again. TompaDompa (talk) 02:01, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

Empire of Japan

@TompaDompa: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Tojo-Hideki Encyclopedia Britannica clearly includes Manchuria as part of the Japanese Empire. Given this is a highly credible source, would you mind readjusting the figures? Dazaif (talk) 19:58, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

Whether Encyclopædia Britannica includes Manchuria as part of the Japanese Empire or not is irrelevant to this list, and the article you linked to doesn't even do that—what it does is include Manchuria in Japan's "area of expansion" in 1942. Your argument seems to be that the source that says that the greatest extent was 7.4 million km² is wrong because it does not include Manchuria and that we should therefore not use its estimate, but that's not how it works. We go by what WP:RELIABLE sources say, and disagreement between sources about which territories to include is to be expected. Sources may decide to include or exclude territories at their discretion based on whichever set of criteria they choose to apply, and it is not for us to say that they ought to have decided otherwise. There does not exist any agreed-upon set of criteria to use—let alone a universally accepted way to apply those criteria—so arguing that a source is not doing it right (because the way they're doing it doesn't comply with our notions of how they should be doing it) is pointless. Instead, if we disagree with the way a source arrived at a figure for the maximum extent of a particular empire, we should focus on locating a higher-quality source which provides a different estimate rather than arguing about what the "right" way to treat that particular empire's extent is. TompaDompa (talk) 01:28, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

Soviet Union

Not too long ago along with the Russian Empire was a side note "a", which labeled the Soviet Union as a successor empire to the empire of Russia due to it's invasion and subsequent subjugation of countries in eastern Europe, for example Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, and it's establishments of satellite states, for example Poland, Bulgaria, and Romania. I would like to know why the side note was removed, especially since it is controversial. In addition, to have the United States listed and not the Soviet Union and vice versa is extremely controversial, after World War 2 the two foremost imperial powers were the USSR and USA, However before and during the war they were joined along with the British Empire. I would like to know the reason(s) for the removal, and I don't see a talk page discussion it being removed, and unless there is a consensus on it being removed, I will re-instate the edit, it is simply too controversial. the Soviet Union is listed in "...empires to date" however it should also be returned to a sidenote for the Russian Empire line on "Empires are there greatest extent". B. M. L. Peters (talk) 02:49, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

It appears that the explanatory footnote was unilaterally removed last March. I restored it. TompaDompa (talk) 11:47, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

Songhai Empire

The wiki page for the Songhai Empire states it was 1.4m km in 1500 but on this page it is stated it's largest extent was only 0.8m.Firestar47 (talk) 18:39, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

The article Songhai Empire used sources that are not up to snuff, see previous discussion about those specific sources at Talk:List of largest empires/Archive 10#Songhai Empire size. I edited that article to fix that issue. TompaDompa (talk) 10:04, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

Remove Portuguese Empire from list

The Portuguese empire never called itself an empire, it was a multi-continental state, so it should not be referred to as an empire, if the Portuguese constitution of the Monarchy until the Republic said that Portugal was a multi-continental state, it cannot be included in that list. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluricontinentalism, No exist any book between the 14th and 20th centuries, which says that Portugal was an empire, but a pluricontinental state, from the reign of the year 1777, nobody knows everything about the countries so I thought this kind of attitude was normal, but this is English wikipedia, but from what I see neither the British books that study countries over time, especially Portugal, which was its oldest ally, there is a lot information available, but I didn't see any of that mentioned in this list, but it would be very useful for this list even for the confidence of the readers who read an article.