Submitted by Taps Coogan on the 2nd of January 2019 to The Sounding Line.

Via reddit user jmerlinb, the following graphic highlights the enormous size of the British Empire at its peak in the early 1920s. With a landmass of roughly 355 million square kilometers, the British Empire was essentially the size of the surface area of the moon and twice the size of Pluto.

Not only did the British control the largest swath of land in the history of the world, they controlled virtually all the world’s oceans.

The 13 largest empires in the history of the world are:

1. British Empire: 23.84% of the world (35.5 million sq km), 1920
2. Mongol Empire: 16.11% of the world (24.0 million sq km), 1270 or 1309
3. Russian Empire: 15.31% of the world (22.8 million sq km), 1895
4. Spanish Empire: 9.20%–13.43% of the world (13.7–20.0 million sq km), 1750 or 1810
5. Qing dynasty: 8.80%–9.87% of world (13.1–14.7 million sq km), 1790
6. Second French colonial empire: 7.72% of the world (11.5 million sq km), 1920
7. Abbasid Caliphate: 7.45% of the world (11.1 million sq km), 750
8. Umayyad Caliphate: 7.45% of the world (11.1 million sq km), 720
9. Yuan dynasty: 7.39%–9.21% of the world (11.0 – 13.72 million sq km), 1310 or 1330
10. Xiongnu Empire: 6.04% of the world (9.0 million sq km), 176 BC
11. Brazilian Empire: 5.60% of the world (8.337 million sq km), 1889
12. Empire of Japan: 4.97%–5.71% of the world (7.4–8.51 million sq km), 1938 or 1942
13. Iberian Union: 4.77% of the world (7.1 million sq km), 1640

To see the rise and fall of the British Empire, click here. How the times have changed…

P.S. If you would like to be updated via email when we post a new article, please click here. It’s free and we won’t send any promotional materials.