Ancient Egypt c. 3100 BCE – 30 BCE Three thousand years of pharaonic civilization along the Nile.
Capital: Memphis, Thebes, Alexandria
Roman Empire 27 BCE – 476 CE (West) / 1453 (East) The Mediterranean-wide state that gave the West its law, roads and Latin heritage.
Capital: Rome, Constantinople
Persian Empire 550 BCE – 651 CE The Achaemenid, Parthian and Sasanian Persias were among the ancient world's greatest states.
Capital: Persepolis, Susa, Ctesiphon
Mughal Empire 1526 – 1857 The Timurid empire of Babur, Akbar and Aurangzeb that ruled most of India for three centuries.
Capital: Agra, Delhi
Maya Civilization c. 2000 BCE – 1697 CE Mesoamerica's most literary civilization — writing, mathematics, astronomy and city-states.
Capital: Tikal, Palenque, Chichén Itzá
Aztec Empire 1428 – 1521 The Triple Alliance that ruled central Mexico from its island capital.
Capital: Tenochtitlan
Inca Empire 1438 – 1533 The largest pre-Columbian empire in the Americas, stretching 4,000 km along the Andes.
Capital: Cuzco
Indus Valley Civilization c. 3300 – 1300 BCE One of the four original cradles of civilization, with planned brick cities and a still-undeciphered script.
Capital: Harappa, Mohenjo-daro
Mesopotamia c. 3500 – 539 BCE The land between the rivers where writing, cities and law were born.
Capital: Ur, Babylon, Nineveh
Ancient Greece c. 800 BCE – 146 BCE Inventors of democracy, philosophy, drama and the Olympics.
Capital: Athens, Sparta, Thebes
Byzantine Empire 330 – 1453 CE The Roman Empire that endured for another millennium in the Greek East.
Capital: Constantinople
Ottoman Empire 1299 – 1922 Six centuries of Islamic empire across three continents.
Capital: Bursa, Edirne, Constantinople (Istanbul)
Han Dynasty 206 BCE – 220 CE China's classical age — Silk Road, Confucian bureaucracy, paper.
Capital: Chang'an, Luoyang
Tang Dynasty 618 – 907 CE Cosmopolitan golden age of medieval China.
Capital: Chang'an
Mongol Empire 1206 – 1368 The largest contiguous land empire in history.
Capital: Karakorum, Khanbaliq (Beijing)
Khmer Empire 802 – 1431 Builders of Angkor Wat, medieval Southeast Asia's greatest state.
Capital: Angkor
Gupta Empire c. 320 – 550 CE North India's classical golden age of mathematics, science and Sanskrit literature.
Capital: Pataliputra
Mauryan Empire 322 – 185 BCE First empire to unify most of the Indian subcontinent.
Capital: Pataliputra
Carthage 814 – 146 BCE Phoenician mercantile empire that rivaled Rome.
Capital: Carthage
Phoenicia c. 1500 – 300 BCE The Levantine seafarers who spread the alphabet across the Mediterranean.
Capital: Tyre, Sidon, Byblos
Minoan Civilization c. 2700 – 1450 BCE Bronze Age Crete's palace civilization.
Capital: Knossos
Mycenaean Greece c. 1600 – 1100 BCE The heroic Bronze Age world of Homer's Iliad.
Capital: Mycenae, Pylos, Tiryns
Hittite Empire c. 1650 – 1178 BCE The Anatolian great power that fought Egypt at Kadesh.
Capital: Hattusa
Assyrian Empire c. 911 – 609 BCE The Iron Age superpower that pioneered military organization and imperial administration.
Capital: Nineveh, Nimrud, Ashur
Babylonian Empire c. 1894 – 539 BCE Hammurabi's law and Nebuchadnezzar's hanging gardens.
Capital: Babylon
Sumer c. 4500 – 1900 BCE The world's earliest urban civilization.
Capital: Uruk, Ur, Eridu
Kingdom of Kush c. 1070 BCE – 350 CE The Nubian kingdom that ruled Egypt as its 25th Dynasty.
Capital: Napata, Meroë
Kingdom of Aksum c. 100 – 940 CE Late antique African power on the Red Sea trade route.
Capital: Aksum
Mali Empire c. 1235 – 1670 West African gold empire made famous by Mansa Musa.
Capital: Niani, Timbuktu
Songhai Empire c. 1464 – 1591 The last and largest of the medieval West African empires.
Capital: Gao
Great Zimbabwe c. 1100 – 1450 Southern Africa's largest medieval stone city.
Capital: Great Zimbabwe
Viking Age Scandinavia 793 – 1066 CE Norse raiders, traders and settlers of the North Atlantic.
Capital: Uppsala, Hedeby, Jorvik
Celtic Peoples c. 1200 BCE – 500 CE Iron Age Europe from the Atlantic to the Balkans.
Capital: None (tribal)
Holy Roman Empire 800 – 1806 A millennium of Central European imperial politics.
Capital: Various (Aachen, Prague, Vienna)
Spanish Empire 1492 – 1898 The first global empire on which 'the sun never set'.
Capital: Madrid
British Empire c. 1583 – 1997 The largest empire in world history.
Capital: London
Russian Empire 1721 – 1917 The Romanov empire from Peter the Great to Nicholas II.
Capital: St. Petersburg, Moscow
Empire of Japan 1868 – 1947 Meiji modernization to Pacific War empire.
Capital: Tokyo
Ancient Israel and Judah c. 1200 BCE – 70 CE The Iron Age kingdoms whose scriptures became the Hebrew Bible.
Capital: Jerusalem, Samaria
Olmec Civilization c. 1500 – 400 BCE Mesoamerica's 'mother culture'.
Capital: San Lorenzo, La Venta
