Several empires in global history have vied for the title of biggest of all time, depending on the criteria and method of measurement used. Size may be measured in a variety of ways, including area, population, economics, and power. The area is the most often used of these since it has a pretty definite definition and can be measured with reasonable accuracy.

Between 1978 and 1997, Estonian political scientist Rein Taagepera published a series of academic articles on the territorial extents of historical empires, defining 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.

Here are the top 10 largest empires ever in the world.

British Empire – 35.5 Million Km²

British Empire – Largest Empires

The British Empire was the world’s largest empire. It was made up of what is today the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland’s colonial holdings. The early 17th century saw the start of Britain’s imperial expansion. The British Empire controlled 35.5 million square kilometers of land at its peak in 1920.

Because the British Empire had colonies all over the world, people used to remark, “The sun never sets on the British Empire.” However, British imperialism began to diminish after World War II, when the United Kingdom ceded independence to the majority of its colonial territories.

The 13 North American colonies that formed the United States of America, Canada, Hong Kong, Australia, and New Zealand are all former British colonial territories.

Mongol Empire – 24 Million Km²

Mongol Empire – Largest Empire

The Mongol Empire ruled over both Asia and Europe. In fact, at its peak, it controlled the majority of the former. The empire began in the early 13th century with the uniting of Mongol tribes under Genghis Khan’s leadership.

Within a half-century, the empire had seized control of a huge portion of Eastern Europe, the majority of Central Asia, and the majority of China. The Mongol Empire’s borders stretched from the Sea of Japan all the way to western Asia Minor (Anatolia, present-day Turkey) at its peak in the mid-to-late 13th century, spanning an area of 24 million square kilometers.

Russian Empire – 22.8 Million Km²

Russian Empire

The Russian Empire began as the Principality of Moscow, which included the land that is now Russia’s capital. Czar Ivan IV, on the other hand, initiated an expansionary push in the mid-16th century. By the mid-seventeenth century, the Russian Empire had reached the Bering Sea’s coasts, across from what is now the US state of Alaska.

Alaska, in reality, was formerly part of the Russian Empire. By the late nineteenth century, the Russian Empire had extended into the Caucasus and Central Asia. At its peak, the empire’s borders stretched from the northern coast of Asia to the borders of modern-day Afghanistan and Iran, and from the Bering Sea in the east to Germany’s eastern border in the west, encompassing a total area of 22.8 million square kilometers.

The Russian Federation still controls much of the old Russian Empire’s territory, albeit the land it previously controlled in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and a portion of Eastern Europe is now controlled by other countries.

Qing Dynasty – 14.7 Million Km²

Qing Dynasty

The Qing Dynasty was an imperial dynasty that controlled China from the mid-seventeenth to the early twentieth centuries. It was China’s final imperial dynasty before the country became a republic.

The Qing Dynasty’s beginnings, however, were not Chinese, but Manchurian, which is why it is sometimes known as the Manchu Dynasty.

Manchuria is currently China’s northeast region. After defeating the preceding Ming Dynasty in the 17th century, the Manchus invaded China and established the Qing Dynasty. At its peak in the late 18th century, the Qing realm covered 14.7 million square kilometers.

Spanish Empire – 13.7 Million Km²

Spanish Empire – Largest Empire

The Spanish Empire was a massive colonial empire that included much of North and South America, the Caribbean, and several smaller countries.

It began shortly after the Iberian Peninsula’s realms of Castile and Aragon consolidated and culminated in the late 15th century with the Reconquista of the Peninsula, or retaking of the peninsula from the Muslims.

At its peak in the early nineteenth century, Spanish dominion in North and South America, the Caribbean, Africa, and Asia totaled 13.7 million square kilometers. Mexico, the republics of Central America, and the majority of South America’s current nation-states are all former Spanish possessions.

Second French Colonial Empire – 11.5 Million Km²

Second French Colonial Empire

Following the time of the First French Colonial Empire, the Second French Colonial Empire began in the early to mid-nineteenth century.

France, like the United Kingdom, previously had several colonial territories across the world. Its most important territories were in Africa, although France had lesser colonies in the Americas, the Caribbean, and the South Pacific.

France’s Second Colonial Empire extended 11.5 million square kilometers at its peak in the early twentieth century. Former French colonies include Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia in Northern Africa, as well as the majority of the region that is now Western Africa.

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Abbasid Caliphate – 11.1 Million Km²

Abbasid Caliphate

The third Islamic Caliphate to replace the Prophet Mohammed, the founder of Islam, was the Abbasid Caliphate. When the Abbasids defeated the preceding Umayyad Caliphate in the mid-8th century, the Caliphate arose.

Islam’s Golden Age began during the reign of the Abbasid Caliphate. The Caliphate’s territory stretched from India’s western border in the east to the coast of North Africa in what is now Algeria in the west, totaling 11.1 million square kilometres.

Umayyad Caliphate – 11.1 Million Km²

Umayyad Caliphate

The Umayyad Caliphate was the second Caliphate after the Prophet Mohammed. It replaced the Rashidun Caliphate in the mid-7th century and lasted until the Abbasids overthrew it in the mid-8th century.

The Umayyad Caliphate ruled over about the same region as the Abbasids listed above. At the start of the dynasty, it already dominated present-day Iran, the Caucasus, the Fertile Crescent, the Arabian Peninsula, and Egypt, but it went on to conquer a vast swath of coastal Northern Africa, extending as far north as Morocco’s northern coast.

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Yuan Dynasty – 11 Million Km²

Yuan Dynasty – Largest Empire

The Yuan Dynasty arose to dominate China when the huge Mongol Empire split into distinct empires in the mid-to-late 13th century. At its peak, it ruled over all of modern-day China, as well as Mongolia and the Korean Peninsula, covering an area of 11 million square kilometres. However, its dominance began to weaken in the mid-14th century, and it was eventually supplanted by the Ming Dynasty.

Although Genghis Khan was crowned with the Chinese title of Emperor in 1206, and the Mongol Empire had ruled territories including modern-day northern China for decades, it was not until 1271 that Kublai Khan officially declared the dynasty in the traditional Chinese style, and the conquest was not complete until 1279, when the Southern Song dynasty was defeated in the Battle of Yamen.

Xiongnu Empire – 9 Million Km²

Xiongnu Empire

The Xiongnu Empire was founded by nomads from the eastern Eurasian Steppe. The empire was formed in the early third century BCE by a man named Modu Chanyu and was located in the land that would eventually become the kingdom of the Mongols.

The Xiongnu Empire’s territory stretched from the Manchurian area of modern-day China to the eastern boundary of Central Asia at its peak in the late 2nd century BCE, totaling 9 million square kilometres.

Attempts to link the Xiongnu to subsequent tribes of the western Eurasian Steppe are contentious. Scythians and Sarmatians were to the west at the same time. Because just a few terms, mostly titles and personal names, were survived in Chinese sources, the identity of Xiongnu’s ethnic core has been the focus of several speculations.

Although this is debatable, the name Xiongnu may be related with that of the Huns or the Huna. Other linguistic linkages postulated by researchers include Iranian, Mongolic, Turkic, Uralic, Yeniseian, Sinitic, or multi-ethnic.