ancient empires?

Question

Im trying to compare the geographic sizes of the greatest ancient empires of eg, Roman, Chinese, Babylionians etc etc at the peak of their greatness. Can anyone find maps online of these. etc etc

Answer 1

The British Empire
The Mongolian Empire of Genghis Khan
The Holy Roman Empire
The Qin Dynasty Chinese Empire
The Empire of Alexander The Great
The Achaemenid Persian Empire
These were the largest Empires in order of size.
I have not included the USSR as an empire although it was larger than several Empires.
The Babylonian, Hittite, Aztec, Egyptian, Mayan, Selucid, Sumerian, Kushite, Sassanid and Olmec empires are also worthy of mention but all are smaller than those I have listed (plus I don't know the order after the Achaemenids)

Answer 2

You'd be better off looking for each independently. Just a small point but the Holy Roman Empire was neither ancient nor very large at its best it encompassed Germany parts of Austria Italy. Small compared to the Empires of Alexander the Romans, the Persians, Mongols, Chinese etc..

Answer 3

I'll elaborate a bit on Monkeyman's answer.

The Mongol empire was the greatest in terms of overall land area. The British Empire at its height was the largest non-contiguous empire in world history. Change the Holy Roman Empire to just the Roman Empire (the German HRE doesn't even rank in this list).

Answer 4

Another possible contender as a modern empire would be that for imperial Japan at its height in the middle of world war two. Although the vast majority of the area encompassed was ocean. the actual area for Japans sphere of direct control was gigantic.

Answer 5

Try an Historical Atlas.
It should give the land areas of all empires through out history.

Answer 6

okay,

This one shows Roman http://www.cit.gu.edu.au/~s285238/Roman/19Maps.html

The tricky thing about the Chinese Empire is that it was split up by dynasties. try this link http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/china/a/ancchinamaps.htm

This is a great link for Near East Empires from 700 to 300 BC (it's interactive!)
http://ancienthistory.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/%257Eatlas/europe/interactive/map25.html

This has some good maps for Greek Empires
http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/geography/ig/Maps-of-Ancient-Greece/Mycenean-Greece.htm

Then there's the Byzantine Empire
http://www.bartleby.com/67/byzant01.html

Roman Empire
http://wps.ablongman.com/wps/media/objects/262/268312/art/figures/KISH_05_111.gif

For anyothers I'd probibly try using this site

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://wps.ablongman.com/wps/media/objects/262/268312/art/figures/KISH106.jpg&imgrefurl=http://wps.ablongman.com/long_kishlansky_cw_5/0,6472,268318-,00.html&h=797&w=924&sz=186&tbnid=rYHFJof-UPq8oM:&tbnh=127&tbnw=147&prev=/images%3Fq%3Droman%2Bempire%2Bmaps&start=3&sa=X&oi=images&ct=image&cd=3