Top 10 Most Important Empires In World History

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10. The Mayan Empire (ca. 2000 BCE-1540 CE)
9. The French Empire (1534-1962)
8. The Spanish Empire (1492-1976)
7. The Qing Dynasty (1644-1912)
6. The Umayyad Caliphate (661-750)
5. The Achaemenid Empire (ca. 550-330 BCE)
4. The Ottoman Empire (1299-1922)
3. The Mongol Empire (1206-1368)
2. The British Empire (1603 to 1997)
1. The Roman Empire (27 BCE to 1453)

Source/Further reading:

[alfredosenalle]

The phrase, "The sun never sets" was first used by the Spanish empire during the late 16th century.
The British liked this phrase so much that they copy it for their own empire during the 19th century.

[BerikoT]

Hey, I think the Portugueses Empire deserves a place on this list, it was one of the first global empires and its on the top in terms of longevity too. We're small now, buy left our mark out there. ( We also have one of the longest alliances on history... Yup, with your lovely country the UK )

[RickMitchellProvenanceAndRoots]

Egypt?
Kind of surprised that Egypt was completely ignored.

[corgi]

Apocalypto was about as historically accurate a movie as star wars.

[K-EVOFFICIAL]

As far as influences go, Tang dynasty has a much larger impact on the human culture than Qing. If you travel through East and Southeast Asia, particularly Japan, you would find a ton of cultural remnants from the Tang dynasty.

[nelsonricardo]

Simon: Falkland Islands
British Overseas Territories & Commonwealth Realms:

[denniscleary]

Alexander of Macedon‘s empire was definitely important since every single region he touched is still being felt till this day

[LeatherNeck]

Russian, Egyptian, Byzantine, Portuguese, Hellenic (Greek), Japanese... All had HUGE impacts on shaping our modern world, All had conquests, and all have a legacy that lives on today. The Persian could have been lumped into one and the Mayans never conquested and never had an empire.

[richardroopnarine]

Egypt, Babylon, Sumeria, Russia, Germany, Mauryan Empire

[ba]

Achaemenid Empire is extremely important. It brought up the glorious times for humanity to take its first steps in global scale trade and communication, transport large scale politics and cultural and religious tolerance. World's most populated civilizations had been developed in Achaemenids' imperial territories before them. Egypt, Elamite, Assyrian, Armenian, Medes, Lydians, Babylonians and so on. The global trade and cultural interaction in global scale started by Achaemenids. So it makes perfectly sense that their domain had included a very large percentage of the world's population; a magnificent all-time record of 44% of the world population. The intercultural trade was very powerful and structured so that their legacy in their main-land last longer than Achaemenids. There are evidence that Sasanian coins have circulated all around from Britain to Japan and Africa. A mathematic master teaching the royals in Japan in 700 could be the last of that era. Although, later, during the Islamic golden age, Islamic empires were hugely under the influence of Persian in matters of trade and governing. Many Iranian scientists like Ibn Sina and Razi flourished as the descendants of earlier civilizations.

[charlesajones]

You might want to check out the History Buffs video on Apocalypto before recommending it as historically accurate.

[swissball]

The roman empire was probably the most important empire ever due to the fact that a huge amount of modern tech has its roots in roman discoveries and inventions

[Raz.C]

re - 1:25
The Roman Empire ran for ~2, 000 years. Starting with Rome's founding in 753 BCE and ending with the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans in 1453. Now it gets a bit tricky because we have to do some complicated maths: 1453 years + 753 years = 2206 years.
So, "more than twice as long as the Roman Empire" would mean more than 4, 000 years and likely more than 4, 500 years.


Now, you might like to counter that the Roman Empire didn't start until (Octavian) 30 AD ish and before that time, it was the Roman Republic and Roman Kingdom. I'd counter your hypothetical counter by saying (A) it was still the same civilisation, regardless of whether it was ruled by a King/ Senate/ Emperor and (B)The Mayan 'Empire' probably had far, Far, FAR more significant political shake-ups in its 3, 000+ year history than the evolution of the Roman Kingdom into the Republic, then the Empire.

[spunkyman]

I would have put the Ottoman Empire second. Briton third

[Peristerygr]

"Μayan Empire" never existed, rather Mayans were a collection of city states regularly fighting each other. If Simon means the mayan people they still exist.

[matthewct]

Dude the Mayan Empire never existed. The Mayan civilization had multiple city states that established themselves on the Yucatán peninsula for 3000 years. By the time the Spanish came around, they were at their dark ages.

[nicklittle]

6:40 Man those sofas must have been unstoppable...

[BlackBanditXX]

Another factoid about Rome. The Roman Empire was the largest Empire in terms of percentage of the global population, with estimates putting it somewhere around 40%.

[evilwelshman]

Just a small language quibble/puzzle: If the Roman Empire's contribution to history cannot be "underestimated", as in the script, wouldn't that mean its contribution is really, really small? I mean, wouldn't what you just said be that it's impossible to give a lowball estimate on how influential the Roman Empire was? XD

[davidsan]

No mention of the Galactic Empire? Palpatine was one of the greatest emperors in history.