"Byzantine Roman Empire. Its successor state, the Umayyad Caliphate, expanded across North Africa and into the Iberian Peninsula. By the beginning of the 8th century, the Umayyad Caliphate had become the largest empire in history, it would not be surpassed in size until the establishment of the Mongol Empire in the 13th century. In 750 the Caliphate clashed with the Tang China at Talas. By this time only these two Empires stretched between the Atlantic and the Pacific. From the 11th century Moroccan empires began to appear, starting with the Almoravid Empire, dominating territories in both Europe as well as"
"Songhai Empire The Songhai Empire (also transliterated as Songhay) was a state that dominated the western Sahel in the 15th and 16th century. At its peak, it was one of the largest states in African history. The state is known by its historiographical name, derived from its leading ethnic group and ruling elite, the Songhai. Sonni Ali established Gao as the capital of the empire, although a Songhai state had existed in and around Gao since the 11th century. Other important cities in the empire were Timbuktu and Djenné, conquered in 1468 and 1475 respectively, where urban-centered trade flourished. Initially,"
"and the Balkans from the mid 16th century onwards. In the 17th century, the Manchu conquered China and established the Qing dynasty. The Islamic Mughal Empire and the Hindu Maratha Empire controlled much of India in the 16th and 18th centuries respectively. Asia is the largest continent on Earth. It covers 9% of the Earth's total surface area (or 30% of its land area), and has the largest coastline, at . Asia is generally defined as comprising the eastern four-fifths of Eurasia. It is located to the east of the Suez Canal and the Ural Mountains, and south of the"
"Mongol Empire The Mongol Empire (Mongolian: ""Mongolyn Ezent Güren"" ; Mongolian Cyrillic: Монголын эзэнт гүрэн; ; also in Russian chronicles) existed during the 13th and 14th centuries and was the largest contiguous land empire in history. Originating in the steppes of Central Asia, the Mongol Empire eventually stretched from Eastern Europe and parts of Central Europe to the Sea of Japan, extending northwards into Siberia, eastwards and southwards into the Indian subcontinent, Indochina and the Iranian Plateau; and westwards as far as the Levant and the Carpathian Mountains. The Mongol Empire emerged from the unification of several nomadic tribes in"
"largest in the world as well. Korea and Japan had fully coalesced as centralized states in the regimes of Goryeo and Heian, The sudden rise of the nomadic Mongol Empire disrupted East Asia, under the leadership of leaders such as Genghis Khan, Subutai, and Kublai Khan brought the majority of East Asia under rule of a single state. All of China and Korea were annexed under the Mongol Yuan Dynasty. The Mongols also attempted and failed to conquer Japan in maritime invasions. The Mongol era in East Asia was short lived due to natural disasters and poor administrative management. In"
"his country's identity by creating the Hangul Writing system to replace use of Chinese Characters. Meanwhile, in Japan fell under military rule of the Kamakura and later Ashikaga Shogunate dominated by Samauri warriors. This section explains events and trends which affected the geographic area of Eurasia. The civilizations within this area while being distinct from one another endured shared experiences. The Mongol Empire which existed during the 13th and 14th centuries, was the largest continuous land empire in history. Originating in the steppes of Central Asia, the Mongol Empire eventually stretched from Central Europe to the Sea of Japan, extending"
"It was also one of the largest empires in world history. In the 16th century, Spain and Portugal were in the vanguard of European global exploration and colonial expansion. The two kingdoms on the conquest and Iberian Peninsula competed with each other in opening of trade routes across the oceans. Spanish imperial conquest and colonization began with the Canary Islands in 1312 and 1402. which began the Castilian conquest of the Canary Islands, completed in 1495. In the 15th and 16th centuries, trade flourished across the Atlantic between Spain and the Americas and across the Pacific between East Asia and"
"and continued with diplomatic endeavours. The Songhai Empire was a western African state centered in eastern Mali. From the early 15th to the late 16th century, it was one of the largest African empires in history. On October 16, 1590, Ahmad took advantage of recent civil strife in the empire and dispatched an army of 4,000 men across the Sahara desert under the command of converted Spaniard Judar Pasha. Though the Songhai met them at the Battle of Tondibi with a force of 40,000, they lacked the Moroccan's gunpowder weapons and quickly fled. Ahmad advanced, sacking the Songhai cities of"
"be seen in everything from architecture to food, music, art and law, from Southern Argentina and Chile to the United States of America together with the Philippines. The complex origins and contacts of different peoples resulted in cultural influences coming together in the varied forms so evident today in the former colonial areas. Spanish Empire The Spanish Empire (; ), historically known as the Hispanic Monarchy () and as the Catholic Monarchy () was one of the largest empires in history. From the late 15th century to the early 19th, Spain controlled a huge overseas territory in the New World"
"Asia, such as the proximity of coal mines; the discovery of the New World, which alleviated ecological restraints on economic growth (land shortages etc.); and the profits from colonization. China had a larger population than Europe throughout the Common Era. Unlike Europe, it was politically united for long periods during that time. During the Song Dynasty (960–1279), the country experienced a revolution in agriculture, water transport, finance, urbanization, science and technology, which made the Chinese economy the most advanced in the world from about 1100. Mastery of wet-field rice cultivation opened up the hitherto underdeveloped south of the country, while"
"Carl Dahlman and Jean-Eric Aubert of the World Bank argue, based on Angus Maddison's data, that China was the world's largest and most advanced economy for the most of the past two millennia and among the wealthiest and most advanced economies until the 18th century. Sinologist Joseph Needham has claimed that China's GDP per capita exceeded Europe by a substantial margin from the 5th century BC onwards, but economic historian Angus Maddison believes that did not happen until the fall of the Roman Empire. During the Song dynasty (960–1279), the country experienced a revolution in agriculture, water transport, finance, urbanization,"
"and the Roman empire, trading silk, minerals, and spices through the famous Silk Road. By 1100, the Song dynasty hosted a population of almost 100 million people with a sophisticated medieval economic system boasting the use of paper money (written business contracts, mercantile credits, checks, promissory notes, bills of exchange), a maritime shipping power having the largest mercantile fleet in the world patrolling the South China Seas and a strong industrial steel manufacturing capacity. For much East Asia's economic history, China was one of the most developed economies on Earth. After the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, for a"
"in mainland Southeast Asia, along with Burma and Vietnam, and had the second largest empire in all of Southeast Asia after the Burmese empire. After the First Anglo-Burmese War of (1824–1826) removed the Burmese threat to Siam, the Siamese empire expanded eastwards unchecked, annexing all Laotian states and western Cambodia until they ran into Vietnamese forces in the middle of Cambodia in 1840. The Siamese captives carried off from Ayutthaya went on to have an outsize influence on traditional Burmese theatre and dance. In 1789, a Burmese royal commission consisting of Princes and Ministers was charged with translating Siamese and"
"empires continued to expand through trade, migration and conquests of neighboring areas. Japan and Korea went under the process of voluntary sinicization, or the impression of Chinese cultural and political ideas. Korea and Japan sinicized because their ruling class were largely impressed by China's bureaucracy. The major influences China had on these countries were the spread of Confucianism, the spread of Buddhism, and the establishment of centralized governance. In the times of the Sui, Tang and Song dynasties (581–1279), China remained the world's largest economy and most technologically advanced society. Inventions such as gunpowder, woodblock printing and the magnetic compass"
"Russia in 1721. Likewise, with the collapse of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815), the Austrian Empire (1804–1867) emerged reconstituted as the Empire of Austria–Hungary (1867–1918), having ""inherited"" the imperium of Central and Western Europe from the losers of said wars. In the thirteenth century, Genghis Khan expanded the Mongol Empire to be the largest contiguous empire in the world. However, within two generations, the empire was separated into four discrete khanates under Genghis Khan's grandsons. One of them, Kublai Khan, conquered China and established the Yuan Dynasty with the imperial capital at Beijing. One"
"""probably the largest empire in the history of Southeast Asia,"" and what the Portuguese regarded as ""the most powerful monarchy in Asia except that of China"". The king standardised laws, calendars, weights and measurements, and Buddhist religious practices throughout the land. But he introduced administrative reforms only at the margins. The ""absurdly overextended"" empire was largely held together by his personal relationships with the vassal rulers, who were loyal to him and not to Toungoo Burma. In the tradition of the prevailing Southeast Asian administrative model, every new high king had to establish his authority with the vassals all over"
"area it was one of the largest empires ever. In the 19th century the empire was internally stagnant and externally threatened by western powers. The defeat by the British Empire in the First Opium War (1840) led to the Treaty of Nanking (1842), under which Hong Kong was ceded to Britain and importation of opium (produced by British Empire territories) was allowed. Subsequent military defeats and unequal treaties with other western powers continued even after the fall of the Qing dynasty. Internally the Taiping Rebellion (1851–1864), a quasi-Christian religious movement led by the ""Heavenly King"" Hong Xiuquan, raided roughly a"
"chroniclers of universal history. Western Europe remained less developed compared to the Islamic world, with its vast network of caravan trade, or China, at this time the world's most populous empire under the Song Dynasty. Constantinople had a population of about 300,000, but Rome had a mere 35,000 and Paris 20,000. By contrast, Córdoba, in Islamic Spain, at this time the world's largest city contained 450,000 inhabitants. The Vikings had a trade network in northern Europe, including a route connecting the Baltic to Constantinople through Russia, as did the Radhanites. With nearly the entire nation freshly ravaged by the Vikings,"
"Song (960–1127) completed the Four Great Inventions. Tang culture spread widely in Asia, as the new maritime Silk Route brought traders to as far as Mesopotamia and Horn of Africa. Dynastic rule ended in 1912 with the Xinhai Revolution, when a republic replaced the Qing dynasty. The Chinese Civil War resulted in a division of territory in 1949, when the Communist Party of China established the People's Republic of China, a unitary one-party sovereign state on Mainland China, while the Kuomintang-led government retreated to the island of Taiwan. The political status of Taiwan remains disputed. Since the introduction of economic"
"Mongol Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the Spanish Empire, and the First French Empire of Napoleon. According to historical statistics and research from the OECD, until the early modern period, Western Europe, China, and India accounted for roughly ⅔ of the world's GDP. The 1956 Suez Crisis suggested that Britain, financially weakened by two world wars, could not then pursue its foreign policy objectives on an equal footing with the new superpowers without sacrificing convertibility of its reserve currency as a central goal of policy. As the majority of World War II had been fought far from its national boundaries, the"
"another research paper published by Michael Cemblast of JP Morgan and updated by the World Economic Forum, similar conclusions were reached—i.e. China was the largest economy in the world for many centuries until the Opium Wars. The First Opium War, fought over opium trade, financial reparations, and diplomatic status, began in 1839 and was concluded by the Treaty of Nanking (Nanjing) in 1842. The treaty ceded the Hong Kong island to the United Kingdom in perpetuity, and it established five treaty ports at Shanghai, Canton, Ningpo (Ningbo), Foochow (Fuzhou), and Amoy. Another treaty the next year gave most favored nation"
"Siam (in modern Thailand), establishing their own settlement there. Though north and west Bengal were part of the empire southern Bengal thrived and became powerful with her overseas trades. In 326 BCE, with the invasion of Alexander the Great the region again came to prominence. The Greek and Latin historians suggested that Alexander the Great withdrew from India anticipating the valiant counterattack of the mighty Gangaridai empire that was located in the Bengal region. Alexander, after the meeting with his officer, Coenus, was convinced that it was better to return. Diodorus Siculus mentions Gangaridai to be the most powerful empire"
"general and the founder of the Shunga Empire. In East Asia, China reached a high point under the Han Dynasty. The Han Empire extended its boundaries from Korea in the east to Vietnam in the South to the borders of modern-day Kazakhstan in the west. Also in the 2nd century BC, the Han dispatched the explorer Zhang Qian to explore the lands to the west and to form an alliance with the Yuezhi people in order to combat the nomadic tribe of the Xiongnu. See: List of sovereign states in the 2nd century BC. 2nd century BC The 2nd century"
"the Mughal Empire controlled much of India and initiated the second golden age for India. China was the largest economy in the world for much of the time, followed by India until the 18th century. By 1368, Zhu Yuanzhang had claimed himself Hongwu Emperor and established the Ming Dynasty of China. Immediately, the new emperor and his followers drove the Mongols and their culture out of China and beyond the Great Wall. The new emperor was somewhat suspicious of the scholars that dominated China's bureaucracy, for he had been born a peasant and was uneducated. Nevertheless, Confucian scholars were necessary"
"Askia Mohammad I Askia Muhammad I (ca. 1443 – 1538), born Muhammad Ture or Mohamed Touré in Futa Tooro, later called Askia, also known as Askia the Great, was an emperor, military commander, and political reformer of the Songhai Empire in the late 15th century. He was from the Soninke ethnic group. Askia Muhammad strengthened his empire and made it the largest empire in West Africa's history. At its peak under his reign, the Songhai Empire encompassed the Hausa states as far as Kano (in present-day Nigeria) and much of the territory that had belonged to the Songhai empire in"
"empire the world had yet seen in the ancient world. At its peak it would stretch from Macedon and Paeonia-Bulgaria in the west, to the Indus Valley in the far east. Founded by Cyrus the Great, it was notable for embracing various civilizations and becoming the largest empire of the ancient history, for its successful model of a centralised, bureaucratic administration (through satraps under a king) and a government working to the profit of its subjects, for building infrastructure such as a postal system and road systems and the use of an official language across its territories and a large"
"Asia and the Caucasus. From the Mediterranean sea and Hellespont in the west to the Indus River in the east, Cyrus the Great created the largest empire the world had yet seen. Thailand and Bhutan are like the United Kingdom in that they are constitutional monarchies ruled by a King. Jordan and many other Middle Eastern monarchies are ruled by a Malik and parts of the United Arab Emirates, such as Dubai, are still ruled by monarchs. Saudi Arabia is the largest Arab state in Western Asia by land area and the second-largest in the Arab world (after Algeria). It"
"largest contiguous empire in world history, the Mongol Empire (1206-1368). Buddhism in Mongolia began with the Yuan emperors' conversion to Tibetan Buddhism. After the collapse of the Mongol-led China-based Yuan dynasty in 1368, the Mongols returned to their earlier patterns of internal strife. The Mongols also returned to their old shamanist ways after the collapse of their empire and only in the 16th and 17th centuries did Buddhism reemerge. At the end of the 17th century, present-day Mongolia became part of the area ruled by the Manchu-led Qing dynasty. During the collapse of the Qing in 1911, Mongolia declared independence"
"articles: Special topics: Lists: Asia Asia () is Earth's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the Eastern and Northern Hemispheres. It shares the continental landmass of Eurasia with the continent of Europe and the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with both Europe and Africa. Asia covers an area of , about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area. The continent, which has long been home to the majority of the human population, was the site of many of the first civilizations. Asia is notable for not only its overall large size and"
"one of the great powers in East Asia, reaching its zenith in the 5th century when its territories expanded to encompass most of Manchuria to the north, parts of Inner Mongolia to the west, parts of Russia to the east, and the Seoul region to the south. Goguryeo experienced a golden age under Gwanggaeto the Great and his son Jangsu, who both subdued Baekje and Silla during their times, achieving a brief unification of the Three Kingdoms of Korea and becoming the most dominant power on the Korean Peninsula. In addition to contesting for control of the Korean Peninsula, Goguryeo"
"the Korean Peninsula during the Goguryeo–Sui War failed disastrously, triggering widespread revolts that led to the fall of the dynasty. The Tang dynasty was founded by Emperor Gaozu on 18 June 618. It was a golden age of Chinese civilization and considered to be the most prosperous period of China with significant developments in culture, art, literature, particularly poetry, and technology. Buddhism became the predominant religion for the common people. Chang'an (modern Xi'an), the national capital, was the largest city in the world during its time. The second emperor, Taizong, is widely regarded as one of the greatest emperors in"
"transport and information capabilities. This gave the empire the ability to carry out combat on all continents in any situation where the emergence of a hostile force emerged. The empires were considered the first global empires in world history were the Portuguese Empire and Spanish Empire in general sense. Between 1498 and 1580, Portugal with a large fleet established a maritime network from Europe to Africa to the Indian Ocean reaching out to China. The Portuguese empire is a network of thousands of km long connecting land, land rented or simply commercial. Through that system, Portugal dominated the spice trade"
"in all the Asian Subcontinents, and islands in the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans. However, it was under his son Philip III of Spain that the Spanish Empire acquired its largest extension. Philip III and his son Philip IV of Spain were also kings of Portugal among other territories besides Spain, which made both of them the rulers of the greatest extension on earth of all time, simply by joining the global territories of Spain and Portugal empires account for more extension than any other king has ever ruled. In 1585, Giovanni Battista Guarini wrote ""Il pastor fido"" to mark"