Skip to content
YearMaps
Planetary Historical Sovereign Registry

Empires & Sovereign States

From ancient Sumerian city-states and Egypt to Rome, the Pax Mongolica, dynastic China, and global colonial realms, explore the territorial boundaries, administrative centers, and civilizational achievements of humanity’s historical sovereign polities.

Polities Indexed
1,612 Polities
Across 5 Continents
Largest Land Realm
24.0M km²
Mongol Empire
Largest Maritime Realm
35.5M km²
British Empire (1921)
Vector Attribution
Cliopatria
13,800+ dated border shapes · CC BY 4.0
Showing 60 of 60 superpowers
Epoch:
Industrial Era2.0M km²

Republic of Indonesia

Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian and Pacific oceans.

Active Epoch:
1946 CE – 2024 CE
Imperial Capital:
Jakarta
Government:
High & Late Middle Ages2.0M km²

Ayyubid Sultanate

The Ayyubid dynasty, also known as the Ayyubid Sultanate, was a Sunni Muslim dynasty of Kurdish origin that founded the medieval Sultanate of Egypt, which was established by Saladin in 1171, following his abolition of the Fatimid Caliphate.

Active Epoch:
1177 CE – 1249 CE
Imperial Capital:
Cairo
Government:
Industrial Era2.0M km²

Dutch East Indies

The Dutch East Indies was a colony of the Dutch Empire, established in 1800 when the Batavian Republic took control of the Dutch East India Company.

Active Epoch:
1800 CE – 1949 CE
Imperial Capital:
Batavia,
Government:
Industrial Era2.0M km²

Second Mexican Empire

The Second Mexican Empire, officially known as the Mexican Empire, was a constitutional monarchy established in Mexico by Mexican monarchists with the support of the Second French Empire.

Active Epoch:
1865 CE – 1867 CE
Imperial Capital:
Mexico City
Government:
Industrial Era2.0M km²

Mexico

Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America.

Active Epoch:
1868 CE – 2024 CE
Imperial Capital:
Mexico City
Government:
High & Late Middle Ages2.0M km²

Allegiance of Ayyubid Sultanate to Abbasid Caliphate

The Ayyubid dynasty, also known as the Ayyubid Sultanate, was a Sunni Muslim dynasty of Kurdish origin that founded the medieval Sultanate of Egypt, which was established by Saladin in 1171, following his abolition of the Fatimid Caliphate.

Active Epoch:
1202 CE – 1249 CE
Imperial Capital:
Cairo
Government:
Early Middle Ages1.9M km²

Fatimid Caliphate

The Fatimid Caliphate, also known as the Fatimid Empire, was a caliphate that existed from the tenth to the twelfth centuries CE under the rule of the Fatimids, an Isma'ili Shi'a dynasty.

Active Epoch:
911 CE – 1176 CE
Imperial Capital:
Raqqada
Government:
Early Modern & Age of Discovery1.9M km²

Kingdom of Portugal

Império Português

The pioneer of the European Age of Discovery, establishing a 5.5M-km² maritime chain of fortresses and trading posts from Brazil to Africa, India, Malacca, and Macau.

Active Epoch:
1415 CE – 1999 CE
Imperial Capital:
Lisbon, Rio de Janeiro
Government:
Maritime Mercantile Monarchy
Industrial Era1.9M km²

Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in West Asia that occupies the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula.

Active Epoch:
1936 CE – 2024 CE
Imperial Capital:
Riyadh
Government:
Early Middle Ages1.9M km²

Liao Dynasty

The Liao dynasty, also known as the Khitan State, officially the Great Liao, was a Khitan-led imperial dynasty of China and empire ruled by the Yelü clan that existed between 916 and 1125.

Active Epoch:
911 CE – 1125 CE
Imperial Capital:
Shangjing
Government:
High & Late Middle Ages1.9M km²

Almoravid Dynasty

The Almoravid dynasty was a Berber Muslim dynasty centered in the territory of present-day Morocco.

Active Epoch:
1056 CE – 1205 CE
Imperial Capital:
Aghmat
Government:
Early Modern & Age of Discovery1.9M km²

Hotaki Dynasty

The Hotak Empire also known as the Hotaki Empire was an Afghan dynasty founded by Ghilji Pashtuns that briefly ruled parts of Iran and Afghanistan during the 1720s.

Active Epoch:
1709 CE – 1737 CE
Imperial Capital:
Kandahar
Government:
Classical Antiquity1.9M km²

Hunnic Empire

The Huns were a nomadic people who lived in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Eastern Europe between the 4th and 6th centuries CE.

Active Epoch:
426 CE – 673 CE
Imperial Capital:
Attila's Court,
Government:
Early Middle Ages1.9M km²

Tibetans

Tibetans are an East Asian ethnic group native to Tibet.

Active Epoch:
850 CE – 1259 CE
Imperial Capital:
Government:
High & Late Middle Ages1.9M km²

Mamluk Sultanate

The Mamluk Sultanate, also known as Mamluk Egypt or the Mamluk Empire, was a state that ruled Egypt, the Levant and the Hejaz from the mid-13th to early 16th centuries, with Cairo as its capital.

Active Epoch:
1241 CE – 1518 CE
Imperial Capital:
Cairo
Government:
High & Late Middle Ages1.8M km²

Blue Horde

The Blue Horde was a crucial component of the Mongol Empire established after Genghis Khan's demise in 1227.

Active Epoch:
1363 CE – 1449 CE
Imperial Capital:
Government:
Industrial Era1.8M km²

Bolivia

Bolivia, officially the Plurinational State of Bolivia, is a landlocked country located in central South America.

Active Epoch:
1825 CE – 2024 CE
Imperial Capital:
Sucre
Government:
Classical Antiquity1.8M km²

Former Qin

Qin, known as the Former Qin and Fu Qin (苻秦) in historiography, was a dynastic state of China ruled by the Fu (Pu) clan of the Di peoples during the Sixteen Kingdoms period.

Active Epoch:
353 CE – 393 CE
Imperial Capital:
Chang'an
Government:
Industrial Era1.8M km²

Qajar Dynasty

The Qajar dynasty is a formerly aristocratic Iranian dynasty that gained prominence with the rise of Shahverdi Sultan in the early 16th century as heads of the Turkoman Qajar tribe of the Qizilbash confederacy.

Active Epoch:
1788 CE – 1923 CE
Imperial Capital:
Government:
Early Middle Ages1.8M km²

Northern Zhou

Zhou, known in historiography as the Northern Zhou, was a Xianbei-led dynasty of China that lasted from 557 to 581 AD.

Active Epoch:
561 CE – 586 CE
Imperial Capital:
Chang'an
Government:
Early Modern & Age of Discovery1.7M km²

Shaybanids

The Shibanids or Shaybanids, more accurately known as the Abul-Khayrid-Shibanids, were a dynasty of Uzbek origin who ruled over the Khanate of Bukhara, the Khanate of Khwarezm (Khiva), and the Khanate of Sibir.

Active Epoch:
1497 CE – 1511 CE
Imperial Capital:
Government:
Industrial Era1.7M km²

Confederate States of America

The Confederate States of America (CSA), also known as the Confederate States or the Confederacy, was a republic in the Southern United States from 1861 to 1865, unrecognized as a sovereign nation by either foreign governments or the United States.

Active Epoch:
1861 CE – 1865 CE
Imperial Capital:
Richmond
Government:
High & Late Middle Ages1.7M km²

Khalji Dynasty

The Khalji or Khilji dynasty was the second ruling house of the Delhi Sultanate, covering large parts of the Indian subcontinent for nearly three decades between 1290 and 1320.

Active Epoch:
1294 CE – 1325 CE
Imperial Capital:
Delhi, Kilokhri
Government:
High & Late Middle Ages1.7M km²

Aq Qoyunlu

The Aq Qoyunlu or the White Sheep Turkomans was a Turkoman, culturally Persianate, Sunni Muslim tribal confederation.

Active Epoch:
1407 CE – 1511 CE
Imperial Capital:
Tabriz
Government:
Bronze & Iron Age Civilizations1.7M km²

Scythia

Scythia is mapped in the atlas for 650 BCE – 224 BCE, with a peak mapped extent of about 1,687,837 km².

Active Epoch:
650 BCE – 224 BCE
Imperial Capital:
Kamianka
Government:
Industrial Era1.7M km²

Río de la Plata

The Río de la Plata, also called the River Plate or La Plata River in English, is the estuary formed by the confluence of the Uruguay River and the Paraná River at Punta Gorda.

Active Epoch:
1811 CE – 1833 CE
Imperial Capital:
Government:
Classical Antiquity1.7M km²

Mahameghavahana Dynasty

The Mahameghavahana dynasty 2nd or 1st century BCE to early 4th century CE) was an ancient ruling dynasty of Kalinga after the decline of the Maurya Empire.

Active Epoch:
170 BCE – 165 BCE
Imperial Capital:
Toshali, Kalinganagara
Government:
Industrial Era1.7M km²

Kingdom of Hejaz and Nejd

The third Saudi state is the current Saudi state and successor to the two earlier states: the first and the second, founded by Abdul Aziz bin Abdul Rahman, who managed to capture the city of Riyadh on January 13, 1902.

Active Epoch:
1926 CE – 1935 CE
Imperial Capital:
Riyadh
Government:
Classical Antiquity1.6M km²

Warring States China

The Warring States period in Chinese history comprises the final centuries of the Zhou dynasty, which were characterized by warfare, bureaucratic and military reform, and political consolidation.

Active Epoch:
480 BCE – 219 BCE
Imperial Capital:
Government:
Classical Antiquity1.6M km²

Zhai

The Qin dynasty was the first imperial dynasty of China.

Active Epoch:
208 BCE – 204 BCE
Imperial Capital:
Xianyang
Government:
Industrial Era1.6M km²

Pahlavi Dynasty

The Pahlavi dynasty was an Iranian royal dynasty that was the last to rule Iran before the country's monarchy was overthrown in the Iranian Revolution in 1979.

Active Epoch:
1924 CE – 1978 CE
Imperial Capital:
Tehran
Government:
Industrial Era1.6M km²

Libyan Arab Republic

Muammar Gaddafi became the de facto leader of Libya on 1 September 1969 after leading a group of Libyan Army officers against King Idris I in a bloodless coup d'état.

Active Epoch:
1969 CE – 2013 CE
Imperial Capital:
Government:
Industrial Era1.6M km²

Kingdom of Libya

The Kingdom of Libya, known as the United Kingdom of Libya from 1951 to 1963, was a constitutional monarchy in North Africa.

Active Epoch:
1953 CE – 1968 CE
Imperial Capital:
Tripoli, Benghazi, Bayda
Government:
Industrial Era1.6M km²

State of Libya

Libya, officially the State of Libya, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa.

Active Epoch:
2014 CE – 2024 CE
Imperial Capital:
Tripoli
Government:
High & Late Middle Ages1.6M km²

Tibet

While the Tibetan Plateau has been inhabited since pre-historic times, most of Tibet's history went unrecorded until the creation of Tibetan script in the 7th century.

Active Epoch:
1363 CE – 1952 CE
Imperial Capital:
Government:
High & Late Middle Ages1.6M km²

Novgorod Republic

The Novgorod Republic, formally known as Lord Novgorod the Great, was a city-state that existed from the 12th to 15th centuries in northwestern Russia, stretching from the Gulf of Finland in the west to the Ural Mountains in the east.

Active Epoch:
1056 CE – 1481 CE
Imperial Capital:
Novgorod
Government:
Early Modern & Age of Discovery1.6M km²

Zand Dynasty

The Zand dynasty was an Iranian dynasty founded by Karim Khan Zand of the Zand tribe of the Laks who ruled over Zand Iran.

Active Epoch:
1748 CE – 1793 CE
Imperial Capital:
Government:
Industrial Era1.6M km²

Mongolian People's Republic

The Mongolian People's Republic (MPR) was the Mongolian communist state that existed from 1924 to 1992 that self-designated first as a people's democratic state and later as a socialist state.

Active Epoch:
1926 CE – 1991 CE
Imperial Capital:
Ulaanbaatar
Government:
High & Late Middle Ages1.6M km²

Great Mongol State

Yeke Monggol Ulus

The largest contiguous land empire in world history, uniting the entire Eurasian landmass from the Sea of Japan to the Danube River under the Pax Mongolica.

Active Epoch:
1206 CE – 1368 CE
Imperial Capital:
Avarga
Government:
Nomadic confederated kurultai / imperial monarchy
Industrial Era1.6M km²

Mongolia

Mongolia is a landlocked country in East Asia.

Active Epoch:
1992 CE – 2024 CE
Imperial Capital:
Ulaanbaatar
Government:
Classical Antiquity1.6M km²

Nanda Empire

The Nanda Empire was a vast empire that governed in Magadha and Gangetic plains with an enormous geographical reach in 4th-century BCE northeastern India, with some accounts suggesting existence as far back as the 5th century BCE.

Active Epoch:
333 BCE – 319 BCE
Imperial Capital:
Pataliputra
Government:
Early Middle Ages1.6M km²

Later Tang

大唐 (Dà Táng)

The cosmopolitan Golden Age of medieval Chinese civilization, celebrated for poetic genius, woodblock printing, Buddhist pilgrimages, and the Pax Sinica.

Active Epoch:
618 CE – 907 CE
Imperial Capital:
Chang'an
Government:
Three Departments and Six Ministries Imperial Bureaucracy
Bronze & Iron Age Civilizations1.5M km²

Qin

Qin was an ancient Chinese state during the Zhou dynasty.

Active Epoch:
750 BCE – 219 BCE
Imperial Capital:
Quanqiu, Qinyi, Qian, Pingyang, Yong, Jingyang, Yueyang, Xianyang
Government:
Classical Antiquity1.5M km²

Indo-Scythians

The Indo-Scythians, also known as Indo-Sakas, were a group of nomadic people of Iranic Scythian origin who migrated from Central Asia southward into the present-day regions of Afghanistan, eastern Iran and the northwestern Indian subcontinent.

Active Epoch:
144 BCE – 282 CE
Imperial Capital:
Government:
Early Modern & Age of Discovery1.5M km²

First Toungoo Empire

The First Toungoo Empire, also known as the Second Burmese Empire in traditional historiography, or simply the Taungoo dynasty, was the dominant power in mainland Southeast Asia in the second half of the 16th century.

Active Epoch:
1502 CE – 1756 CE
Imperial Capital:
Toungoo
Government:
Classical Antiquity1.5M km²

Huns

The Huns were a nomadic people who lived in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Eastern Europe between the 4th and 6th centuries CE.

Active Epoch:
106 CE – 425 CE
Imperial Capital:
Attila's Court,
Government:
Industrial Era1.4M km²

Mali Federation

The Mali Federation was a federation in West Africa that linked the French colonies of Senegal and the Sudanese Republic for two months in 1960.

Active Epoch:
1960 CE – 2024 CE
Imperial Capital:
Dakar
Government:
Bronze & Iron Age Civilizations1.4M km²

Assyrian Egypt

The Assyrian conquest of Egypt covered a relatively short period of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 673 to 663 BCE.

Active Epoch:
650 BCE – 616 BCE
Imperial Capital:
Government:
Industrial Era1.4M km²

German Empire

The German Empire, also referred to as Imperial Germany or the Second Reich, was the period of the German Reich from the unification of Germany in 1871 until the November Revolution in 1918, when Germany changed its form of government to a republic.

Active Epoch:
1871 CE – 1919 CE
Imperial Capital:
Berlin
Government:
Industrial Era1.4M km²

Republic of New Granada

The Republic of New Granada was a centralist unitary republic consisting primarily of present-day Colombia and Panama with smaller portions of today's Costa Rica, Ecuador, Venezuela, Peru and Brazil that existed from 1831 to 1858.

Active Epoch:
1834 CE – 1858 CE
Imperial Capital:
Santa Fé de Bogotá
Government:
Bronze & Iron Age Civilizations1.4M km²

Neo-Assyrian Empire

The Neo-Assyrian Empire was the fourth and penultimate stage of ancient Assyrian history.

Active Epoch:
900 BCE – 601 BCE
Imperial Capital:
Assur
Government:
Classical Antiquity1.4M km²

Eastern Wu

Wu, known in historiography as Eastern Wu or Sun Wu, was a dynastic state of China and one of the three major states that competed for supremacy over China during the Three Kingdoms period.

Active Epoch:
207 CE – 282 CE
Imperial Capital:
Wuchang,
Government:
Early Modern & Age of Discovery1.4M km²

Moghulistan

Moghulistan is mapped in the atlas for 1463 CE – 1518 CE, with a peak mapped extent of about 1,383,470 km².

Active Epoch:
1463 CE – 1518 CE
Imperial Capital:
Almaliq
Government:
Classical Antiquity1.4M km²

Cao Cao

Cao Cao, courtesy name Mengde, was a Chinese statesman, warlord, and poet who rose to power during the end of the Han dynasty, ultimately taking effective control of the Han central government.

Active Epoch:
197 CE – 223 CE
Imperial Capital:
Government:
Classical Antiquity1.4M km²

Greco-Bactrian Kingdom

The Greco-Bactrian Kingdom, officially the Kingdom of Bactria was a Greek kingdom during the Hellenistic period located in Central Asia and Afghanistan.

Active Epoch:
247 BCE – 127 BCE
Imperial Capital:
Bactra, Ai-Khanoum
Government: