List of largest empires

For context, the land area of the Earth, excluding the continent of Antarctica, is . Empires at their greatest extent Empire size in this list is defined as the dry land area it controlled at the time, which may differ considerably from the area it claimed. For example: in the year 1800, European powers collectively claimed approximately % of the Earth's land surface that they did not effectively control. Where estimates vary, entries are sorted by the lowest estimate. Where more than one entry has the same area, they are listed alphabetically. Timeline of largest empires to date The earliest empire which can with certainty be stated to have been larger than all previous empires was that of Upper and Lower Egypt, which covered ten times the area of the previous largest civilisation around the year 3000 BC. Timeline of largest empires at the time == Largest empires by share of world population ==

Because of the trend of increasing world population over time, absolute population figures are for some purposes less relevant for comparison between different empires than their respective shares of the world population at the time. For the majority of the time since roughly 400 BC, the two most populous empires' combined share of the world population has been 30–40%. Most of the time, the most populous empire has been located in China. == See also ==