Check out our top 21 countdown of the world’s largest empires. In some cases, more than one empire in history started in the same place, such as China or Persia.

According to Guinness World Records, which seems as good an authority as any, the answer is the Achaemenid Empire in 480 B.C. Also known as the Persian Empire, it's estimated that 44% of the world ...

Alexander of Macedon earned his epithet “Great”—awarded to him in antiquity and not, as one might think, only later—by conquering an empire of two million square miles, stretching from ...