Which was the largest empire in world history?
Recently I watched a television programme about Genghis Khan and this raised in my mind just how large was the Mongol Empire whose creation he started?
I had assumed that the largest empire in history was the British Empire and, on checking out the relevant Wikipedia page, i find that I am not wrong. In terms of both geographical size (33.2 million square kilometres) and population (458M), the British Empire was the biggest.
BUT it is possible to make a case that really the Mongol Empire was the greatest. First, in geographical terms, at 33 million square kilometres it was almost exactly the same size at the British Empire. Second, in terms of the proportion of the world population of the time, the British Empire was 20% but the Mongol Empire was 25.6%.
The iranians could argue that, if we are going to measure size by the proportion of the global population of the time, then the largest empire ever was the Achaemenid Empire or First Persian Empire of Cyrus the Great which had 44.48% of the total population within it.
See further data here.