I kinda want to see what the fewest countries you could cover the whole world with is if you took everything at its historical peak territory. So like post-WW1 British empire, Mongol empire just before Chinggis died, Umayyad caliphate when it stretched from Iran to Spain, Roman Empire under Trajan etc etc. How many do we need to fill in the whole map? And what’s the smallest country that we need in order to do so?
Alright my plans for the evening got cancelled so I decided to have a go at working this out. Methodology, a term I am using somewhat loosely, was to go down wikipedia’s list of largest empires, ignore each one that was already completely covered (the four big caliphates and several Chinese dynasties in particular), then take their peak territory from Geacron. Geacron isn’t an ideal source here, not least because the only way to “export” from it without paying money is print screen, but it’s good enough for these purposes. I also didn’t bother filling in the entire map because a couple of places were basically just going to come down to whichever country had them today due to how difficult to conquer they have historically been. Priority in overlaps is given to the larger empire. The result is this: https://i.imgur.com/kLNjpSm.png
On here we have:
Britain in 1920 (including dominions)
Mongolia in 1259
The USSR in 1945
Russia in 1895… basically only because of Finland and Latvia
Qing dynasty in 1790
Spain in 1810
France in 1920
The Abbasid caliphate in 750
The USA in 2022. We could have used 1946 to get part of Germany, but we needed Germany in here anyway since the British and Soviet areas aren’t included due to different territorial peaks.
Brazil in 1889
Japan in 1942
Rome in 117
Portugal in 1894 (mainland Portugal is already covered by Rome, though)
Italy in 1941 (mainland Italy is, of course, also Rome)
Belgium in 1939 (Rome has the core again)
Netherlands in 1938
Denmark in 1917
Germany in 1941
This list leaves Western Sahara, Liberia, Sweden, Slovakia, Nepal, Bhutan, Papua New Guinea, and Antarctica for a total of 25 countries (or maybe 27 if you add Norway and Chile for maximum Antarctic coverage. I suppose you could also argue that the Treaty of Torsedillas granted half of Antarctica each to Spain and Portugal, not that either ever actually controlled it). Possibly also some islands, especially in the Pacific, but the map isn’t in a high enough resolution to tell. The most contested areas are the Levant and Central Asia. Some big empires that aren’t on the list include every Persian empire, the Ottomans, and Alexander’s empire.
I mean, it would make cartographer a somewhat easier job… Do we really need to have all those -stans anyway? 😛
I kinda want to see what the fewest countries you could cover the whole world with is if you took everything at its historical peak territory. So like post-WW1 British empire, Mongol empire just before Chinggis died, Umayyad caliphate when it stretched from Iran to Spain, Roman Empire under Trajan etc etc. How many do we need to fill in the whole map? And what’s the smallest country that we need in order to do so?
OK, but to make this interesting the countries you pick must have 100% of their peak territory, and it cannot overlap with another country.
Good luck.
This sounds like a problem that would be covered in an algorithms class.
Something something knapsack problem, dynamic programming, something something
Well, even without this rule. On what basis should territory be attributed to one empire or the other? We get back to square one with this.
I feel like overlaps should be allowed otherwise certain regions (Iraq and its surroundings come to mind) will make it impossible
Overlaps would make for a nice heat map. Which areas in the world have been coveted the most?
Alright my plans for the evening got cancelled so I decided to have a go at working this out. Methodology, a term I am using somewhat loosely, was to go down wikipedia’s list of largest empires, ignore each one that was already completely covered (the four big caliphates and several Chinese dynasties in particular), then take their peak territory from Geacron. Geacron isn’t an ideal source here, not least because the only way to “export” from it without paying money is print screen, but it’s good enough for these purposes. I also didn’t bother filling in the entire map because a couple of places were basically just going to come down to whichever country had them today due to how difficult to conquer they have historically been. Priority in overlaps is given to the larger empire. The result is this: https://i.imgur.com/kLNjpSm.png
On here we have:
This list leaves Western Sahara, Liberia, Sweden, Slovakia, Nepal, Bhutan, Papua New Guinea, and Antarctica for a total of 25 countries (or maybe 27 if you add Norway and Chile for maximum Antarctic coverage. I suppose you could also argue that the Treaty of Torsedillas granted half of Antarctica each to Spain and Portugal, not that either ever actually controlled it). Possibly also some islands, especially in the Pacific, but the map isn’t in a high enough resolution to tell. The most contested areas are the Levant and Central Asia. Some big empires that aren’t on the list include every Persian empire, the Ottomans, and Alexander’s empire.
Jesus, that’s intense. I knew it would be a bit choppy, but that is much choppier than I imagined. Thanks for sharing 👍
This just sounds like playing a Paradox game, now
Please, nobody look at my combined hours played on those games
Who else is going to send letters to Eminem?
Signed truly yours, your biggest fan, Kazakhstan.
Former Liverpool FC left back Steve Harkness.