Empire
What exactly constitutes an
Empire (from the Latin "
imperium", denoting military command within the ancient Roman government) is a topic of intense debate within the scholarly community. Generally, an empire is defined as a state that extends dominion over areas and populations that are culturally and ethnically distinct from the culture at the center of power. Like other states, an empire maintains its political structure at least partly by
coercion. Land-based empires (such as
Mongol or
Achaemenid Persia) tend to extend in a contiguous area; sea-borne empires, also known as
thalassocracies (the
Athenian and
British empires provide examples), may feature looser structures and more scattered territories.
Empires predate the
Romans by several hundred years:
Egypt, for example, created an empire in the 16th century BC by invading and then incorporating
Nubia and the ancient city-states of the Levant. The
Akkadian Empire of
Sargon of Akkad exists as one of the earliest models of a far-flung, land-based empire. Empire contrasts with the example of a
federation, where a large, multi-ethnic state — or even an ethnically homogeneous one like
Japan or a small area like
Switzerland — relies on mutual agreement amongst its component political units which retain a high degree of autonomy. Additionally, one can compare physical empires with potentially more abstract or less formally structured
hegemonies, in which a culturally unified area is politically or militarily unified by the
sphere of influence of a single political member, such as a
city-state. Empires have also been compared with
superpowers.
What constitutes an empire is subject to wide debate and varied definitions. An empire can be described as any state pursuing
imperial policies, can be defined traditionally, or can be examined as a
political structure, for example.
Alexander J. Motyl provides a theoretical framework for examining the structure of empire. First, in an empire there must be a
core and a
periphery. The empire's structure relates the
core elite to the
peripheral elite in a mutually beneficial fashion. Such as relationship can be established through any number of means, be they aggressive, coercive, or consensual. And while there is a vertical relationship between the core and periphery, there is a lack of substantive relations between periphery and periphery.
;Historical Empires
;Early Empires
* Elamite Empire (c. 2700 BC - 539 BC)
* Akkadian Empire (c. 2350 BC - 2150 BC)
* Ur III Empire (c. 2100 BC - 2000 BC)
* Babylonian Empire (c. 1900 BC - 1600 BC)
* Egyptian Empire (1550 BC - 1070 BC)
* Hittite Empire (c. 1460 BC - 1180 BC)
* Hebrew Empire (c. 1050 BC - 920 BC)
* Mayan Empire (c. 1000 BC â€" AD 1697)
* Assyrian Empire (c. 900 BC - 612 BC)
* Achaemenid Empire (aka. the Persian Empire) (c. 550 BC - 330 BC)
* Magadhan Empire (500 BC - 300/139 BC?)
* Athenian Empire (477 BC - 431 BC)
* Macedonian Empire (c. 338 BC - 309 BC)
* Seleucid Empire (323 BC - 60 BC)
* Chinese Empire (221 BC - AD 1912)
* Parthian Empire (c. 200 BC â€" 224 AD
* Roman Empire (27 BC - AD 476)
;First Millennium AD
* Vietnamese Empire (? - 1945)
* Sassanian Empire (224 - 651)
* Palmyrene Empire (260 â€" 272)
* Gallic Empire (260 â€" 274)
* Britannic Empire (286 â€" 297)
* Teotihuacano Empire (300 BC - 600/700 AD)
* Gupta Empire (320 - 550)
* Mauryan Empire (321 BC - 185 BC)
* Byzantine Empire (395 - 1453)
* Frankish Empire (c. 509 â€" 843)
* Tibetan Empire (c. 600s â€" 1000s)
* Arabian Empire (c. 630 - 1258)
* Bulgarian Empire (681 - 1018; 1185 - 1396)
* Chola Empire (c. 800s - 1200s)
* Venetian Empire (800s - 1797)
* Khmer Empire (802 - 1462)
* Great Moravian Empire (833 - 900s)
* Holy Roman Empire (843 – 1806)
* Ghana Empire (c. 900 - 1240)
* Tu'i Tonga Empire (950 â€" 1875?)
* Ghaznavid Empire (963 - 1187)
;Early Second Millennium AD
* Hungarian Empire (1000 - 1918)
* Irish Empire (1005 - 1014)
* Seljuk Empire (c. 1037 - 1194)
* Kongo Empire (c. 1100 - c. 1884)
* Danish Empire (1200s - 1953)
* Nicaean Empire (1204 â€" 1261)
* Latin Empire (1204 â€" 1261)
* Trapezuntine Empire (1204 â€" 1461)
* Mongol Empire (1206 - 1294)
* Abyssinian Empire (1270 - 1974)
* Ottoman Empire (1281 - 1923)
* Majapahit Empire (1293 - c. 1500)
* Mali Empire (1300s - 1600s)
* Serbian Empire (1345 - 1371)
* Vijayanagara Empire (c. 1350 - 1700)
* Siam Empire (1350 â€" c. 1909)
* Aztec Empire (1375 - 1521)
* Golden Horde (1378 - 1502)
* Ming Empire (1398 â€" 1566)
* Songhai Empire (1400s - 1500s)
* Malinké Empire (c. 1400 - )
* Timurid Empire (1401 - 1505)
* Incan Empire (1438 - 1533)
* Spanish Empire (1492 - 1975)
* Portuguese Empire (1495 - 1975)
;Late Second Millennium AD
* Mughal Empire (1526 - 1857)
* Swedish Empire (1561 - 1878)
* British Empire (c. 1583 - *) De jure*
* French Empire (c. 1605 - ) **
* Dutch Empire (1620 - ) ***
* Maratha Empire (1674 - 1761)
* Russian Empire (1721 - 1917)
* Sikh Empire (1801-1849)
* Haitian Empire (1804 - 1806)
* Austrian Empire (1804 - 1867)
* Mexican Empire (1822 - 1823, 1864 - 1867)
* Brazilian Empire (1822 - 1889)
* Austro-Hungarian Empire (1867 - 1918)
* German Empire (1871 - 1918)
* Japanese Empire (1871 - 1945)
* Italian Empire (1885 - 1941)
* Korean Empire (1897 - 1910)
* American Empire (1898 - )
;20th Century
* Belgian Empire (1901 - 1962)
* Soviet Empire (1922 â€" 1991)
* Nazi Empire (1933 - 1945)
* Central African Empire (1977 - 1979)
* The United Kingdom still has many overseas territories, and also the commonwealth realms are considered to be completely self governing colonies as they recognise the British monarch as their head of state.
** De facto, The British Empire ended in the 1960s
*** French Guiana is still an overseas territory of France.
**** The Dutch West Indies are still an overseas territory of the Dutch government to this day.Britannica Article on the Holy Roman Empire at the University of Houston*To Rule the Earth...: List of Great Empires
*Empire A link to Hardt and Negri's book.*Colonialism
*List of largest empires
*List of extinct countries, empires, etc.
*Trade bloc
*Global empire
