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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)
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)
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
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)
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)
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)
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))
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.
this recent edit changed numerous instances of
to
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)
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))
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. Philippines, 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)
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)
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)
The Carthaginian empire should be listed if anyone can establish area 144.137.118.72 ( talk) 10:53, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
The Göktürk Empire should be on this list. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.148.123.76 ( talk) 04:52, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
I don't understand why the US is listed with a 1940's population. If the criteria is that the US ruled the Philippines, 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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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
Theres a naming section here in Wikipedia, this isn't the place for this discussion —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.7.97.51 ( talk) 00:17, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
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)
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)
(Please feel free to click on the links, as they will help you see a better visual of regions discussed below)
Known possesions;
Possible possessions;
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)
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)
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)
Sources; [1], [2], [3], [4]. 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)
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)
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)
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)
Please return to the version of Beeswaxcandle, after this sucessive edits have destroyed the work of the last months, and if it¡s possible semiprotect the page. Sorry i forgot to add the signature -- Bentaguayre ( talk) 23:42, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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:
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)
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 meaning of Contiguous and Maritime should be explained in the article since both have multiple meanings. I guess, and it is only a guess, that in this article contiguous means not separated by an ocean and maritime means having an imperial navy. I'm not sure what purpose is served by either list. Nitpyck ( talk) 15:07, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
According to this source, a complete study of the Parthian Empire, at his height the parthian territory size was 800000 thousand square miles, that mean 2064000 km2
http://books.google.es/books?id=Swt66Fh4NcUC&pg=PA25&dq=parthia+square+miles
Another source give less territory during Mithridates the Great reign but probably it's too much restrictive
http://books.google.es/books?id=_hbwMlUBo0wC&pg=PA64&dq=Mithridates+II+of+Parthia+square+miles&lr=#PPA64,M1
-- Bentaguayre ( talk) 19:29, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
I cannot but help see a dramatic bias in this article. With regards to the British Empire, entire mass lands are included, regardless of whether they had been fully explored or colonized. With all others, the Spanish example being particularly poignant, massive areas are excluded for no apparent reason. If the article is to have any credibility at all it has to use consistent, objective criteria for measuring the size of empires. Otherwise, it merely feeds the view that Wikipedia lacks even the most basic academic rigeur. Please revise it thoroughly or delete it.
Nachofon ( talk) 20:47, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
I've tagged the article as a reminder to editors that this article covers comparative history so when we quote a source it should be a comparative source. This means the source itself should contain the comparison. If we go hunting for individual estimates in separate sources of variable quality and do the historical comparison ourselves we may breach WP:SYNTHESIS, which we want to avoid. Lachrie ( talk) 19:23, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
I was wondering if the inclusion of Xiongnu in this article is valid, let alone naming them the largest "empire" of the ancient times. Based on their wiki page:
I would recommand removing them from the list.-- LogiPhi ( talk) 22:53, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
I understand there are problems with this article, and that some(!) numbers are exaggerated. Many of these numbers are 'sourced' too. But the reliability of those 'sources' are another problem in itself. Case in point: Han Dynasty is ranked 2nd largest empire of ancient time with 6 mil km2 area. Whatever map I could get my hands on, shows Hans at their largest extent to be almost/no more than HALF of modern day China.
I've recently checked this article, and there seems to be a problem. Was the Xiongnu "Empire" really 9.0 million km2? I believe the author of the source has vastly exaggerated the size. I've seen the empire at its greatest extent overlapped on modern day borders, and it is the size of 1 Mongolia, 1 Kazhakstan, 0.5 Kazhakstan= 5.5+ million km2 at the most! If 9.0 is correct, then Xiongnu would be at least as big as the huge Arab empires, which its not. Even historians agree the Mongolia empire has loose borders, and their borders were undefined, especially for an ancient turkic confederation. I have seen earlier that this page once held a 10.7 estimate for Achamenid, which might be true, anyways going back to this issue, I think we should and I myself am highly skeptical about the 9.0 figure. Any ideas? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 153.18.19.61 ( talk) 00:39, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
An article on comparative history has to rely on comparative sources to avoid breaching wp:synth. Comparative sources are to be preferred for the main text, where available. While the British Museum estimate for Achaemenid Persia does not come from a comparative source, I think we can justify its inclusion as a footnote, without harming the integrity of the sourced comparison in the main text. Lachrie ( talk) 01:03, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
On the name, for clarity it's best to include both the dynasty name and the country name, thus Achaemenid Persia, rather than Achaemenid Empire. Labelling it an "empire" in a list of empires is redundant. It conveys less information in the entry than naming the country does. Persia is much better known than the Achaemenids. Putting the two terms together makes it easy for people who aren't too sure who the Achaemenids were to figure out what political entity is being referred to. The same goes for other empires with multiple entries like China and India. We should also give numerical dates rather than the reigning sovereigns so that people can see the date on the page rather than having to follow a link to another page to find the date out. It's clearer, reduces clutter and makes the article easier to use. Lachrie ( talk) 14:02, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
Wow, you seen to missing the point here again. I said that the other empires included their largest estimates for size Where users can see them in the rank. Then the smaller estimates where mentioned in the bottom footnote. You are doing what is opposite of what is done here 99% of the time, I have found a more reliable and newer source, the Forgotten Empire one, and I can't listed because you think its syn? It would be syn if I was comparing it to a 5.5 estimate to advance a position (that they are top 3), your doing that right know, for the Achaemenids.
I said earlier that we should include the highest estimate on the top, if you weren't advancing a position, you would not put the 5.5 estimate at the top, but you have, which has dropped the achaemenid empire down the list, and sources say it was the largest in ancient times. In this case were both doing syn, but because I have legitement reasons for (not removing the 5.5, but listing it at the bottom as an alternative) the 7.5 estimate, it should be at the top.
Firstly I can gaurantee you that the Han empire was not larger than Achamenid Persia (I now agree we should call it that). And secondly, this list, before the most recent major edits to it, The Xiongnu empire was 3.5 million square kilometers, and was cited! I came up with a 5.5 estimate for it, but it said 3.5 in the article awhile ago, (note, my estimate for was for discussion purposes only, I never intended to change it without a citation, which I havent). So if I was advancing a position, I could have said 2.5, but I came up with 5.5, which would have helped the Xiongnu go higher in the list of greatest ancient empire.
So my main concern is why you have a problem with including the better source, which is the 7.5 at the top of the list, when you know that the Han empire was smaller than the Achaemenids. Secondly, the same measurement criteria IS THE SAME as measuring any country, in all maps, for example, know that current Mongolia is 1.5 million square kilometers, it is NOT DIFFERENT for any other map measurement, unless they make up a fake map and widen it, or use a false map projection, or that suddenly the Earth shrunk 2 million square kilometers which made Achamenenid Persia shrink from 7.5 to 5.5 million square kilometers (it would have caused massive earthquakes).
If you go on the Achaemenid Empire article, and look at that most accurate map, count up all the million sqauare kilometers for each country that is included in the empire, and you'l know which one is bigger. Anyways, please tell me why the mostly wrong estimate is right to put at the top, while we have every reason to include it at the bottom (review the many facts reference inclusion I said at the top already). AND note that the British musuem source does compare empires in there books, and is a academic source, so don't say its an individual estimate (a small pdf article by 3 amatures does not compare to a scholarly book), cause its many years worth of scholary research that indicated that size, it is from the big book Forgotten Empire. There is some degree of uncertainty, like was it 5.9 -or- 10.7 these are the highest and lowest estimates that I have found for the Achaemenids. Plus you can't call it cherrypicking, when that British source has been here for years now, most sources for other empires where also by Cambridge and Oxford sources, which are both British.
I have given my reasons, so please enlighten me.-- 99.183.243.103 ( talk) 15:01, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
“ | Our list of large historical states was based on the compilation by Taagepera (1978a, 1978b, 1979, 1997), which has been systematized and posted on the web by Chase-Dunn and coworkers http://irows.ucr.edu/. We checked the Taagepera list with all major historical atlases in the library of the University of Connecticut and found eight additional empires that fit our criteria (Axum, Hsi-Hsia, Kara-Khitai, Srivijaya, Maurian, Kushan, Gupta, and Maratha). For historical empires, we used states that peaked before 1900. We excluded the maritime empires of the European Great Powers, because these empires were not contiguous (widely distributed collections of territories). One difficulty in constructing the list was presented by the repeated rise of empires in the same location, such as in China. We adopted the middle road of counting each major dynasty (Han, Tang, Ming, etc.) as a separate empire, but did not distinguish between cycles within any one 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 same result. This lends support to our argument that successive dynasties had significantly independent opportunities to expand in any direction. | ” |
Could you please specify your source for a world population estimate of 152 million in the 4th century BC? It's not clear in the citation you provided for the population estimates for Achaemenid Persia, and we have to confirm that it's based on a consistent measurement. Lachrie ( talk) 16:15, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
Turchin, Adams and Hall are professional academics who have published a study of historical geography in a peer-reviewed journal. It is a reliable source for comparative historical geography. They don't have an agenda. Their list of large historical states is very comprehensive and their study of the territorial dimensions appears to be systematic. While it may not be perfect (and we can register this by giving alternative estimates in the footnotes), they're not pushing a point of view. There's no reason to suspect them of favouritism. They're not maximising estimates for one historical state and minimising those for others based on personal preference. Theirs is the best single source for comparative historical geography anyone here has yet come up with, and the one whose use best meets Wikipedia's expectations of consistency and reliability. Since your method of data collection is, by contrast, haphazard and unscientific, it's unlikely you'll be able to gather much support for it from other editors, but you're welcome to ask.
To take your latest example, the historical demographers cited in the Historical Estimates of World Population US Census bureau source above, McEvedy and Jones, estimate a world population of 100 million for 500 BC. I have a copy of their actual book in my hands. I can tell you that they estimate a Persian Empire population of 17 million in the 4th century BC and a north Chinese agricultural population of 25 million by the same date. They also estimate an Indian population of 25 million, including 15 million in the Ganges basin, in 500 BC. Other sources show a similar distribution of world population. So Walter Scheidel's 35 million for Achaemenid Persia is actually quite high by the standards of some other historical demographers. But it incorporates more recent research and it's very obviously more authoritative and reliable than Cowley, Hanson or Dougherty. Scheidel's study is explicitly a comparative history of early empires published this year by a leading specialist in comparative history, while it seems reasonable to conclude that the astronomical total of 70 million for Persia in the popular military histories is either sensationalist or assumes a much larger world population than 152 million for the 4th century BC. And please note also that until we can actually confirm Scheidel's estimate for world population, making any calculation based on demographic estimates from disparate sources is technically a breach of wp:synth. However, it does seem plausibly compatible with Scheidel's estimate for Achaemenid Persia, based on the likely relative distribution of world population. Lachrie ( talk) 01:20, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
Lachrie, on the 152 million estimate, it was here before I edited this article. Plus 152 and 162 are not far off. Firstly Cowley, and I seen his book later say's on very next page that the empire was overshadowed by millions or tens of millions more, indicating 80 million. Doughetry says with Greece it would be 70Persia 2Greece= 72 or almost 75 million. The last source blatantly says about 70 million. Even if it was 69 million, in terms of percentage it would highly exeed the Qing's Empire world population percentage, which around 36% and is second place, so Achaemenid Persia would still remain in first place (35/100-90= 35%-38% 70/100= 70% 80/100= 80% only 35/152= 23%, so I am not doing syn but comparing the two estimates of 70 or 80 so the user can decide which one would be higher, I am giving room for speculation that does not hurt anyone, I am showing that estimates vary, and that there is no clear answer). The plus sign there is to indicate possibly more, as all three source hinted that it could have been more, meaning plus. Later, I might improve this rendering so it would seem less complicated, to of course make things simpler to understand. Thanks again for your input. And again, we don't know how they make there population estimates, but it seems your favoring the pdf and Scheidel's estimate more, which would be cherrypicking and uneutral, I know you have good reasons for this, but I assure more people are now favoring and accepting the 70-80+ million estimate. Please try to use the wpsynth justification more lesser, because sometimes this issue has nothing to do with wpsynth, but more with wpNeutrality, which this article heavily lacks.
I have a theory to why the pdf people calculated a 5.5 and not a 7.5 estimate, becuase they were looking a eurocenteric map of Achaemenid Persia, which showed it to be smaller than it really is, for example at its height in 500 bc under Darius compare these two maps;
So my point is that the pdf people were looking at a older or less reliable map, that is why they came up with 5.5 and not a 7.5 estimate. Even for the Xiongnu some online maps are highly exaggerated, the greatest estimate I found for Xiongnu (and I was comparing all maps) was 5.5 (I mean this for discussion purposes only, I don't intend to include my original research in the article, so don't worry). ALSO please check out this link [5] IF THIS is supposed to be 7.5, then the second Farsi map on this page is probably around 9-10 million square kilometers. Finally, there you go.-- 99.24.163.51 ( talk) 02:20, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
Also, because you favor 5.5 million for the ancient empire section, I say we keep both citations, and favor BOTH estimates, which means between 5.5 and 7.5, I'm forced to do this synthesis, because of the current uneutrality. So we would get 6.5 million. Note that 5.5 and 7.5 are not far off. So what do think of this proposal, its okay if you disagree, its a just a suggestion by me. Thanks.-- 99.24.163.51 ( talk) 20:10, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
Lachrie, I was a little concerned with your tone, when you said I violated the rules, I was asking your thoughts on it, I was never going to do such a thing. Also, One of the sources come from "The Foremost Military Historians," and I agree the other 70 is less reliable, as to the 35 million I'm open on the issue. I have seen other estimates at 25-50 million. I can tell you the reason why Rome probably had less, because there was mostly water in the center of the Empire, and it was not larger than the Achaemenids, but it was at time when the population was more in the world than the Achaemenid time. But because Achaemenian times had growth in population and trade, plus it was larger in land size, it was larger in population percentage. Also, the 7.5 estimate is not too farfetched, if you look at the map were they get the 7.5 its not an exaggerated map as compared to the other ones on this page, it dosen't show Nubia, Ethiopia, Punt, the Southeastern coasts of Arabia, some of Central Asia and India IN the empire. Other better maps do, so the British map is mostly incomplete and does not show Persia at its greatest extent as according to my 10 year research on this topic. It seems to me that your in favor of the lowest estimates, but the reason I favor the highest estimates is because every other empire in this article lists their highest estimates, even exaggerating at times. But I am personally in favor of an average or just to list all estimates, which would make the article more complicated but clearer to understand. In your case you favor a ONE source for everything in this article, is it not better to have many sources, or just one source for everything, wouldn't that be unfair to the other sources, as they would get booted out (note uneutrality)? So then you say you want a comparative source, which a few and sometimes unreliable estimates are in existance (and if they all come from one or two people for every estimate on this page, it would be a most unreliable source in the eyes of scholars). In terms of land size km2 is one type of measurement, its just that some people Base their conclusions on false maps, that is why I have been concerned with this article, because of these false maps. The conclusion that these false maps lead to is, the wrong estimate. Also, measurment criteria may differ in a few kilometers, for example 7.56 could be stated by others as just 7.5, hardly a major difference. So when I see scholars state over and over that Persia was the largest of the ancient world, and I also see that the previous estimate for Xiongnu was (3.5)-5.5, I come to the conclusion that its mostly accurate. Then I see a 9.0 estimate for the Xiongnu out of nowhere, I become sckeptical of these comparative tables. I hope you can undertand this situation, thanks.-- 153.18.19.230 ( talk) 21:25, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
Again, YOUR choosing the lowest estimate, no matter if its comparative, its flawed. Achaemenid Empire at its greatest contained the most people in 500 BC, and also Egypt by itself had according to historians 7.5 million, Greece 2 million, Persia proper 5 million= 14.5 million (and thats not even a quarter of the empire!!!) in 500 BC, so 17 million is fringe, and 126 is OR, they probably found the average number between 152 and 100 million (Guess what, it equals 126, a Coincidence???). I am willing to even accept an 35-42 million for Persia, which other than the 70 million, an 35-42 (which I have the source written down and in the future will present it to you) is the most common non-comparative and comparative estimate for Persia, and out of 100 or 126 million would still leave it in first place, so we could add those sources to be Accurate, but it would leave Persia in the same place for population percentage. So our main focus is to see if an Xiongnu 9.0 estimate is accepted by historians, which I have not even found One, should'nt that be our Main concern, population percentages always vary, but this time for Persia it would not change anything, for ancient empires the 9.0 figure Still remains to be corraborated by other historians. My solution, lets say for example, two sources say 1.2 and 1.7, so we would put 1.5 in the rank, and keep the sources at the bottom for everyone to find out about the 1.2 and 1.7, would this be OR? So (Note, this has been done since this article was created, it was done by all users, I even remember an 14.7 and 11.2 estimate for Qing, Guess what, in the rank it said and still says about 12.5, so if your going to call this OR, then the whole article is currently OR, or most of it)?-- 99.56.140.16 ( talk) 08:09, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
Lachrie, on the Xiongnu estimate issue, I am still open minded to the possibility that it was smaller, as based on every other map I have seen on the internet. But for now I can not and will not replace your 9.0 estimate, because it is sourced and reliable, so if I find a another reliable estimate for Xiongnu, I'll definitely tell you about it if I choose to add it. I myself don't like unexpected changes and appreciate further discussion on the topic.
On the population percentage issue, I'm glad to see that you have made a wise decision on even including the Achaemenids in the list, because I know that a wide range of estimates are possible. So I guess I agree on this change, unless we can find, for example, a reliable source or sources that say 30 out of 90, or 50 out of 150, in a comparative way, we should not comit synthesis by original research. So until we find a comparative source for the Achaemenids in a population percentage estimate, I agree not to include in the list currently, but if I find a reliable one, then we could include it.
Until those two things can be achieved as stated at the top, I will not edit the article, except to fix typos to improve the article. So now I'm going annouce that I we end this discussion here, as this Achaemenid Persia section is getting too long. Also I'm going on a break from editing Wikipedia, and to focus more on research than speculation. Finally, I want to thank you for this engaging discussion topic, and I hope to see you more, if I choose to join, on this article in the future. Then I'll see you around later, best regards.-- 99.56.140.16 ( talk) 10:32, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 |
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)
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)
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
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)
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)
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)
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))
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.
this recent edit changed numerous instances of
to
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)
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))
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. Philippines, 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)
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)
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)
The Carthaginian empire should be listed if anyone can establish area 144.137.118.72 ( talk) 10:53, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
The Göktürk Empire should be on this list. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.148.123.76 ( talk) 04:52, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
I don't understand why the US is listed with a 1940's population. If the criteria is that the US ruled the Philippines, 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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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
Theres a naming section here in Wikipedia, this isn't the place for this discussion —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.7.97.51 ( talk) 00:17, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
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)
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)
(Please feel free to click on the links, as they will help you see a better visual of regions discussed below)
Known possesions;
Possible possessions;
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)
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)
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)
Sources; [1], [2], [3], [4]. 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)
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)
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)
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)
Please return to the version of Beeswaxcandle, after this sucessive edits have destroyed the work of the last months, and if it¡s possible semiprotect the page. Sorry i forgot to add the signature -- Bentaguayre ( talk) 23:42, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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:
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)
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 meaning of Contiguous and Maritime should be explained in the article since both have multiple meanings. I guess, and it is only a guess, that in this article contiguous means not separated by an ocean and maritime means having an imperial navy. I'm not sure what purpose is served by either list. Nitpyck ( talk) 15:07, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
According to this source, a complete study of the Parthian Empire, at his height the parthian territory size was 800000 thousand square miles, that mean 2064000 km2
http://books.google.es/books?id=Swt66Fh4NcUC&pg=PA25&dq=parthia+square+miles
Another source give less territory during Mithridates the Great reign but probably it's too much restrictive
http://books.google.es/books?id=_hbwMlUBo0wC&pg=PA64&dq=Mithridates+II+of+Parthia+square+miles&lr=#PPA64,M1
-- Bentaguayre ( talk) 19:29, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
I cannot but help see a dramatic bias in this article. With regards to the British Empire, entire mass lands are included, regardless of whether they had been fully explored or colonized. With all others, the Spanish example being particularly poignant, massive areas are excluded for no apparent reason. If the article is to have any credibility at all it has to use consistent, objective criteria for measuring the size of empires. Otherwise, it merely feeds the view that Wikipedia lacks even the most basic academic rigeur. Please revise it thoroughly or delete it.
Nachofon ( talk) 20:47, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
I've tagged the article as a reminder to editors that this article covers comparative history so when we quote a source it should be a comparative source. This means the source itself should contain the comparison. If we go hunting for individual estimates in separate sources of variable quality and do the historical comparison ourselves we may breach WP:SYNTHESIS, which we want to avoid. Lachrie ( talk) 19:23, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
I was wondering if the inclusion of Xiongnu in this article is valid, let alone naming them the largest "empire" of the ancient times. Based on their wiki page:
I would recommand removing them from the list.-- LogiPhi ( talk) 22:53, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
I understand there are problems with this article, and that some(!) numbers are exaggerated. Many of these numbers are 'sourced' too. But the reliability of those 'sources' are another problem in itself. Case in point: Han Dynasty is ranked 2nd largest empire of ancient time with 6 mil km2 area. Whatever map I could get my hands on, shows Hans at their largest extent to be almost/no more than HALF of modern day China.
I've recently checked this article, and there seems to be a problem. Was the Xiongnu "Empire" really 9.0 million km2? I believe the author of the source has vastly exaggerated the size. I've seen the empire at its greatest extent overlapped on modern day borders, and it is the size of 1 Mongolia, 1 Kazhakstan, 0.5 Kazhakstan= 5.5+ million km2 at the most! If 9.0 is correct, then Xiongnu would be at least as big as the huge Arab empires, which its not. Even historians agree the Mongolia empire has loose borders, and their borders were undefined, especially for an ancient turkic confederation. I have seen earlier that this page once held a 10.7 estimate for Achamenid, which might be true, anyways going back to this issue, I think we should and I myself am highly skeptical about the 9.0 figure. Any ideas? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 153.18.19.61 ( talk) 00:39, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
An article on comparative history has to rely on comparative sources to avoid breaching wp:synth. Comparative sources are to be preferred for the main text, where available. While the British Museum estimate for Achaemenid Persia does not come from a comparative source, I think we can justify its inclusion as a footnote, without harming the integrity of the sourced comparison in the main text. Lachrie ( talk) 01:03, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
On the name, for clarity it's best to include both the dynasty name and the country name, thus Achaemenid Persia, rather than Achaemenid Empire. Labelling it an "empire" in a list of empires is redundant. It conveys less information in the entry than naming the country does. Persia is much better known than the Achaemenids. Putting the two terms together makes it easy for people who aren't too sure who the Achaemenids were to figure out what political entity is being referred to. The same goes for other empires with multiple entries like China and India. We should also give numerical dates rather than the reigning sovereigns so that people can see the date on the page rather than having to follow a link to another page to find the date out. It's clearer, reduces clutter and makes the article easier to use. Lachrie ( talk) 14:02, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
Wow, you seen to missing the point here again. I said that the other empires included their largest estimates for size Where users can see them in the rank. Then the smaller estimates where mentioned in the bottom footnote. You are doing what is opposite of what is done here 99% of the time, I have found a more reliable and newer source, the Forgotten Empire one, and I can't listed because you think its syn? It would be syn if I was comparing it to a 5.5 estimate to advance a position (that they are top 3), your doing that right know, for the Achaemenids.
I said earlier that we should include the highest estimate on the top, if you weren't advancing a position, you would not put the 5.5 estimate at the top, but you have, which has dropped the achaemenid empire down the list, and sources say it was the largest in ancient times. In this case were both doing syn, but because I have legitement reasons for (not removing the 5.5, but listing it at the bottom as an alternative) the 7.5 estimate, it should be at the top.
Firstly I can gaurantee you that the Han empire was not larger than Achamenid Persia (I now agree we should call it that). And secondly, this list, before the most recent major edits to it, The Xiongnu empire was 3.5 million square kilometers, and was cited! I came up with a 5.5 estimate for it, but it said 3.5 in the article awhile ago, (note, my estimate for was for discussion purposes only, I never intended to change it without a citation, which I havent). So if I was advancing a position, I could have said 2.5, but I came up with 5.5, which would have helped the Xiongnu go higher in the list of greatest ancient empire.
So my main concern is why you have a problem with including the better source, which is the 7.5 at the top of the list, when you know that the Han empire was smaller than the Achaemenids. Secondly, the same measurement criteria IS THE SAME as measuring any country, in all maps, for example, know that current Mongolia is 1.5 million square kilometers, it is NOT DIFFERENT for any other map measurement, unless they make up a fake map and widen it, or use a false map projection, or that suddenly the Earth shrunk 2 million square kilometers which made Achamenenid Persia shrink from 7.5 to 5.5 million square kilometers (it would have caused massive earthquakes).
If you go on the Achaemenid Empire article, and look at that most accurate map, count up all the million sqauare kilometers for each country that is included in the empire, and you'l know which one is bigger. Anyways, please tell me why the mostly wrong estimate is right to put at the top, while we have every reason to include it at the bottom (review the many facts reference inclusion I said at the top already). AND note that the British musuem source does compare empires in there books, and is a academic source, so don't say its an individual estimate (a small pdf article by 3 amatures does not compare to a scholarly book), cause its many years worth of scholary research that indicated that size, it is from the big book Forgotten Empire. There is some degree of uncertainty, like was it 5.9 -or- 10.7 these are the highest and lowest estimates that I have found for the Achaemenids. Plus you can't call it cherrypicking, when that British source has been here for years now, most sources for other empires where also by Cambridge and Oxford sources, which are both British.
I have given my reasons, so please enlighten me.-- 99.183.243.103 ( talk) 15:01, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
“ | Our list of large historical states was based on the compilation by Taagepera (1978a, 1978b, 1979, 1997), which has been systematized and posted on the web by Chase-Dunn and coworkers http://irows.ucr.edu/. We checked the Taagepera list with all major historical atlases in the library of the University of Connecticut and found eight additional empires that fit our criteria (Axum, Hsi-Hsia, Kara-Khitai, Srivijaya, Maurian, Kushan, Gupta, and Maratha). For historical empires, we used states that peaked before 1900. We excluded the maritime empires of the European Great Powers, because these empires were not contiguous (widely distributed collections of territories). One difficulty in constructing the list was presented by the repeated rise of empires in the same location, such as in China. We adopted the middle road of counting each major dynasty (Han, Tang, Ming, etc.) as a separate empire, but did not distinguish between cycles within any one 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 same result. This lends support to our argument that successive dynasties had significantly independent opportunities to expand in any direction. | ” |
Could you please specify your source for a world population estimate of 152 million in the 4th century BC? It's not clear in the citation you provided for the population estimates for Achaemenid Persia, and we have to confirm that it's based on a consistent measurement. Lachrie ( talk) 16:15, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
Turchin, Adams and Hall are professional academics who have published a study of historical geography in a peer-reviewed journal. It is a reliable source for comparative historical geography. They don't have an agenda. Their list of large historical states is very comprehensive and their study of the territorial dimensions appears to be systematic. While it may not be perfect (and we can register this by giving alternative estimates in the footnotes), they're not pushing a point of view. There's no reason to suspect them of favouritism. They're not maximising estimates for one historical state and minimising those for others based on personal preference. Theirs is the best single source for comparative historical geography anyone here has yet come up with, and the one whose use best meets Wikipedia's expectations of consistency and reliability. Since your method of data collection is, by contrast, haphazard and unscientific, it's unlikely you'll be able to gather much support for it from other editors, but you're welcome to ask.
To take your latest example, the historical demographers cited in the Historical Estimates of World Population US Census bureau source above, McEvedy and Jones, estimate a world population of 100 million for 500 BC. I have a copy of their actual book in my hands. I can tell you that they estimate a Persian Empire population of 17 million in the 4th century BC and a north Chinese agricultural population of 25 million by the same date. They also estimate an Indian population of 25 million, including 15 million in the Ganges basin, in 500 BC. Other sources show a similar distribution of world population. So Walter Scheidel's 35 million for Achaemenid Persia is actually quite high by the standards of some other historical demographers. But it incorporates more recent research and it's very obviously more authoritative and reliable than Cowley, Hanson or Dougherty. Scheidel's study is explicitly a comparative history of early empires published this year by a leading specialist in comparative history, while it seems reasonable to conclude that the astronomical total of 70 million for Persia in the popular military histories is either sensationalist or assumes a much larger world population than 152 million for the 4th century BC. And please note also that until we can actually confirm Scheidel's estimate for world population, making any calculation based on demographic estimates from disparate sources is technically a breach of wp:synth. However, it does seem plausibly compatible with Scheidel's estimate for Achaemenid Persia, based on the likely relative distribution of world population. Lachrie ( talk) 01:20, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
Lachrie, on the 152 million estimate, it was here before I edited this article. Plus 152 and 162 are not far off. Firstly Cowley, and I seen his book later say's on very next page that the empire was overshadowed by millions or tens of millions more, indicating 80 million. Doughetry says with Greece it would be 70Persia 2Greece= 72 or almost 75 million. The last source blatantly says about 70 million. Even if it was 69 million, in terms of percentage it would highly exeed the Qing's Empire world population percentage, which around 36% and is second place, so Achaemenid Persia would still remain in first place (35/100-90= 35%-38% 70/100= 70% 80/100= 80% only 35/152= 23%, so I am not doing syn but comparing the two estimates of 70 or 80 so the user can decide which one would be higher, I am giving room for speculation that does not hurt anyone, I am showing that estimates vary, and that there is no clear answer). The plus sign there is to indicate possibly more, as all three source hinted that it could have been more, meaning plus. Later, I might improve this rendering so it would seem less complicated, to of course make things simpler to understand. Thanks again for your input. And again, we don't know how they make there population estimates, but it seems your favoring the pdf and Scheidel's estimate more, which would be cherrypicking and uneutral, I know you have good reasons for this, but I assure more people are now favoring and accepting the 70-80+ million estimate. Please try to use the wpsynth justification more lesser, because sometimes this issue has nothing to do with wpsynth, but more with wpNeutrality, which this article heavily lacks.
I have a theory to why the pdf people calculated a 5.5 and not a 7.5 estimate, becuase they were looking a eurocenteric map of Achaemenid Persia, which showed it to be smaller than it really is, for example at its height in 500 bc under Darius compare these two maps;
So my point is that the pdf people were looking at a older or less reliable map, that is why they came up with 5.5 and not a 7.5 estimate. Even for the Xiongnu some online maps are highly exaggerated, the greatest estimate I found for Xiongnu (and I was comparing all maps) was 5.5 (I mean this for discussion purposes only, I don't intend to include my original research in the article, so don't worry). ALSO please check out this link [5] IF THIS is supposed to be 7.5, then the second Farsi map on this page is probably around 9-10 million square kilometers. Finally, there you go.-- 99.24.163.51 ( talk) 02:20, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
Also, because you favor 5.5 million for the ancient empire section, I say we keep both citations, and favor BOTH estimates, which means between 5.5 and 7.5, I'm forced to do this synthesis, because of the current uneutrality. So we would get 6.5 million. Note that 5.5 and 7.5 are not far off. So what do think of this proposal, its okay if you disagree, its a just a suggestion by me. Thanks.-- 99.24.163.51 ( talk) 20:10, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
Lachrie, I was a little concerned with your tone, when you said I violated the rules, I was asking your thoughts on it, I was never going to do such a thing. Also, One of the sources come from "The Foremost Military Historians," and I agree the other 70 is less reliable, as to the 35 million I'm open on the issue. I have seen other estimates at 25-50 million. I can tell you the reason why Rome probably had less, because there was mostly water in the center of the Empire, and it was not larger than the Achaemenids, but it was at time when the population was more in the world than the Achaemenid time. But because Achaemenian times had growth in population and trade, plus it was larger in land size, it was larger in population percentage. Also, the 7.5 estimate is not too farfetched, if you look at the map were they get the 7.5 its not an exaggerated map as compared to the other ones on this page, it dosen't show Nubia, Ethiopia, Punt, the Southeastern coasts of Arabia, some of Central Asia and India IN the empire. Other better maps do, so the British map is mostly incomplete and does not show Persia at its greatest extent as according to my 10 year research on this topic. It seems to me that your in favor of the lowest estimates, but the reason I favor the highest estimates is because every other empire in this article lists their highest estimates, even exaggerating at times. But I am personally in favor of an average or just to list all estimates, which would make the article more complicated but clearer to understand. In your case you favor a ONE source for everything in this article, is it not better to have many sources, or just one source for everything, wouldn't that be unfair to the other sources, as they would get booted out (note uneutrality)? So then you say you want a comparative source, which a few and sometimes unreliable estimates are in existance (and if they all come from one or two people for every estimate on this page, it would be a most unreliable source in the eyes of scholars). In terms of land size km2 is one type of measurement, its just that some people Base their conclusions on false maps, that is why I have been concerned with this article, because of these false maps. The conclusion that these false maps lead to is, the wrong estimate. Also, measurment criteria may differ in a few kilometers, for example 7.56 could be stated by others as just 7.5, hardly a major difference. So when I see scholars state over and over that Persia was the largest of the ancient world, and I also see that the previous estimate for Xiongnu was (3.5)-5.5, I come to the conclusion that its mostly accurate. Then I see a 9.0 estimate for the Xiongnu out of nowhere, I become sckeptical of these comparative tables. I hope you can undertand this situation, thanks.-- 153.18.19.230 ( talk) 21:25, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
Again, YOUR choosing the lowest estimate, no matter if its comparative, its flawed. Achaemenid Empire at its greatest contained the most people in 500 BC, and also Egypt by itself had according to historians 7.5 million, Greece 2 million, Persia proper 5 million= 14.5 million (and thats not even a quarter of the empire!!!) in 500 BC, so 17 million is fringe, and 126 is OR, they probably found the average number between 152 and 100 million (Guess what, it equals 126, a Coincidence???). I am willing to even accept an 35-42 million for Persia, which other than the 70 million, an 35-42 (which I have the source written down and in the future will present it to you) is the most common non-comparative and comparative estimate for Persia, and out of 100 or 126 million would still leave it in first place, so we could add those sources to be Accurate, but it would leave Persia in the same place for population percentage. So our main focus is to see if an Xiongnu 9.0 estimate is accepted by historians, which I have not even found One, should'nt that be our Main concern, population percentages always vary, but this time for Persia it would not change anything, for ancient empires the 9.0 figure Still remains to be corraborated by other historians. My solution, lets say for example, two sources say 1.2 and 1.7, so we would put 1.5 in the rank, and keep the sources at the bottom for everyone to find out about the 1.2 and 1.7, would this be OR? So (Note, this has been done since this article was created, it was done by all users, I even remember an 14.7 and 11.2 estimate for Qing, Guess what, in the rank it said and still says about 12.5, so if your going to call this OR, then the whole article is currently OR, or most of it)?-- 99.56.140.16 ( talk) 08:09, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
Lachrie, on the Xiongnu estimate issue, I am still open minded to the possibility that it was smaller, as based on every other map I have seen on the internet. But for now I can not and will not replace your 9.0 estimate, because it is sourced and reliable, so if I find a another reliable estimate for Xiongnu, I'll definitely tell you about it if I choose to add it. I myself don't like unexpected changes and appreciate further discussion on the topic.
On the population percentage issue, I'm glad to see that you have made a wise decision on even including the Achaemenids in the list, because I know that a wide range of estimates are possible. So I guess I agree on this change, unless we can find, for example, a reliable source or sources that say 30 out of 90, or 50 out of 150, in a comparative way, we should not comit synthesis by original research. So until we find a comparative source for the Achaemenids in a population percentage estimate, I agree not to include in the list currently, but if I find a reliable one, then we could include it.
Until those two things can be achieved as stated at the top, I will not edit the article, except to fix typos to improve the article. So now I'm going annouce that I we end this discussion here, as this Achaemenid Persia section is getting too long. Also I'm going on a break from editing Wikipedia, and to focus more on research than speculation. Finally, I want to thank you for this engaging discussion topic, and I hope to see you more, if I choose to join, on this article in the future. Then I'll see you around later, best regards.-- 99.56.140.16 ( talk) 10:32, 4 June 2009 (UTC)