User:Carlotm/sandbox2

List of largest empires

01:48, 2017 April 1‎ TompaDompa

This is a list of the largest empires in world history, not a definitive one since the selection of political entities to be considered "empires" is difficult and fraught with controversy.

An empire involves the extension of a state's sovereignty over external territories inhabited by different ethnic groups. The term "empire" in this context (not necessarily a state ruled by an emperor) does not have a precise definition, but is generally applied to political entities that have, by the standards of their time, a very large territory, usually acquired by conquest. Rein Taagepera has defined an empire as "any relatively large sovereign political entity whose components are not sovereign" and its size as the area over which the empire has some undisputed military and taxation prerogatives.

There is no clear consensus among historians on how to estimate territorial extension and population of an empire, if only because information on boundaries, and therefore population, is often ambiguous, when not lacking entirely. Thus, the present values, and the ensuing ranking, are approximate estimates, and ought to be taken only as a guidance.

This list is limited to empires whose greatest extent exceeded 2% of the total land area of the Earth (148940000 km2). .