Top Ten Empires

Largest Empires by Land Area:

1. British Empire

   Land area: 35.5 million km²
   Percentage of world land area: 23.84% (in 1920)
   Period: 16th to 20th century

2. Mongol Empire

   Land area: 24.0 million km²
   Percentage of world land area: 16.11%
   Period: 13th/14th century

3. Russian Empire

   Land area: 22.8 million km²
   Percentage of world land area: 15.31% (in 1985)
   Period: 1721 to February 1917 (February Revolution)

4. Qing Dynasty (also known as the Manchu Dynasty)

   Land area: 14.7 million km²
   Percentage of world land area: 9.87% (in 1790)
   Period: AD 1644 to AD 1912

5. Spanish Empire

   Land area: 13.7 million km²
   Percentage of world land area: 9.2% (in 1810)
   Period: 16th to 18th century with remnants to the 20th century

6. Second French colonial empire

   Land area: 11.5 million km²
   Percentage of world land area: 7.72% (in 1920)
   Period: 19th and 20th century

7. Abbasid Caliphate

   Land area: 11.1 million km²
   Percentage of world land area: 7.45% (in 750)
   Period: AD 750 to AD 1517

8. Umayyad Caliphate

   Land area: 11.1 million km²
   Percentage of world land area: 7.45% (in 720)
   Period: AD 661 to AD 750

9. Yuan dynasty (Kublai Khan)

   Land area: 11.0 million km²
   Percentage of world land area: 7.39% (in 1310)
   Period: AD 1271 to AD 1368

10. Portuguese Empire

    Land area: 10.4 million km²
    Percentage of world land area: 6.98% (in 1815)
    Period: 15th to 20th century

and some others…

Ming Dynasty

Land area: 6.5 million km²
Percentage of world land area: 4.36% (in 1450 AD)
Period: 1368 AD to 1644 AD

Achaemenid Empire (Cyrus the Great and Xerxes)

Land area: 5.5 million km²
Percentage of world land area: 2.12% (in 500 BC)
Period: 675 BC to 334 BC

Macedonian Empire (Alexander the Great)

Land area: 5.2 million km²
Percentage of world land area: 3.49% (in 323 BC)
Period: 808 BC to 148 BC

Ottoman Empire

Land area: 5.2 million km²
Percentage of world land area: 3.9% (in 1683 AD)
Period: 1299 AD to 1923 AD

Roman Empire

Land area: 5.0 million km²
Percentage of world land area: 3.36% (in 174 AD)
Period: 27 BC to 1461 AD

Image: By Tataryn (Own work)
[CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons