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Empires are all individual in character, having been formed in widely different times under widely different political structures. For the purposes of this 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. Whether a nation is or was called an empire is not taken into account.^{citation needed}

Measurement details

The calculation of the land area of a particular empire is controversial. In general, this list errs on the side of including any land area that was explored and explicitly claimed, even if the areas were populated very sparsely or not at all. For example, a large portion of Northern Siberia is included in the size of the Russian Empire but not the Mongol Empire. The Mongol Empire's northern border was somewhat ill-defined, but in most places it was simply the natural border between the steppe and the taiga. Occupied areas north of this are included in the area of the empire, but at the time the majority of the taiga and tundra were unexplored and uninhabited. This area was only very sparsely populated by the Russian Empire, but it had been explicitly claimed by the Russian Empire by the 1600s, and its extent had been entirely explored by the late 1800s. Similarly, the northernmost Canadian islands such as Ellesmere Island were explored and claimed by the British Empire by the mid 1800s (virtually the entire mainland was at least sparsely populated well before that).

No claims on mainland Antarctica are included in the area of any of the empires.

Due to the historical trend of increasing population and GDP, the list of largest empires in these categories is highly dependent on which relatively recent political entities are defined as empires. The measures of population and GDP as a percentage of the world total take into account this historical growth, although decent GDP data is only available for the last few centuries, accurate only for the last decades.

Largest empires by landmass

Ancient empires

Medieval empires

Modern empires

All empires

Contiguous empires

Maritime empires

Largest empires by population

Population estimates are unknown for many other ancient empires not listed here.

Population size

Percentage of world population

Largest empires by economy

GDP estimates in the following list are only given for empires in modern times, from the eighteenth to twentieth centuries. All dollar amounts are in 1990 USD.

GDP size

Percentage of world GDP

List of largest empires.html

Contents

Definition