From emperor Augustus to Julius Caesar, the power and reach of this Italian empire is well known. The name conjures up images of Roman soldiers spreading across the world and conquering all lands in the name of Rome.
However, when compared with other historical empires, the Roman Empire is pretty small.
In fact, when ranking all the empires in the history of the world by geographic size, the Roman Empires comes in at number 19.
Its maximum land area was 2.51 million square miles, and its maximum population was somewhere between 65 and 88 million people.
By comparison, the number one ranked empire is the British Empire with a geographic area of 13.01 million square miles and a population of 458 million people.
Other empires that surpass the Roman Empire in geographic area include the Mongol Empire, the Russian Empire, the Spanish Empire, the Qing Dynasty, and the Japanese Empire.
While these empires may have not been quite as famous as the Roman Empire (at least not in the Western world), they were more powerful in many ways.
