10 of the Longest-Lasting Empires and What Historians Say Kept Them Going

Start hereMost empires do not last long. A few lasted for many centuries. So what did the long ones have in common, and how sure can anyone be?

There is no official list of the longest-lasting empires. The answer depends on what you count as one empire. It could be one ruling family, one state that changed families, or a line of rulers who carried on an older title.

This is a selection, not a ranking. We chose ten from different parts of the world that each lasted more than four centuries by the dates below. Other long-lived states could be on the list too.

So each card below gives the dates historians use, and says when the count depends on a choice like that. A 2011 study of 41 empires from 3,000 BC to AD 600 found an average lifespan of about 220 years. In that data, an empire’s chance of collapse did not depend on its age. In plain words, an old empire was no more likely to fall in a given year than a young one. A 2025 study, using a larger database, found the same kind of pattern but a longer typical lifespan, of about 300 years.

The ten below lasted longer than either average, in two groups. For each, we share what named historians suggest helped it last, how sure they are, and something to notice.

01When the count depends on what you call one empire

For these four, the number of years changes with what you treat as the same empire.

1. Imperial China (221 BC to 1912)

China was ruled by emperors for over two thousand years, with more than three centuries when the empire was split.

The Qin dynasty created a unitary state, with a central administration and one standard writing script. Under the Han, Confucianism became the official teaching and open civil service examinations were introduced. From 220 to 589 the empire was split, until the Sui dynasty reunified China. The dynastic system collapsed in 1911–12.

So this card counts a way of ruling that new dynasties took over, not one family. By our count, the empire was split for 369 years of that time, from 220 to 589, while a series of dynasties still ruled the south.

How sure: Limited this card rests on a university teaching timeline, which lists the institutions but does not argue why they lasted.

Something to notice: when a new group takes charge of anything, look at which old rules it keeps.

2. The Roman Empire in the west (27 BC to AD 476)

Counted in the west only, Rome’s empire lasted about five hundred years.

In January 27 BC the Roman Senate gave Octavian the title Augustus, and he is counted as the first emperor. The Roman Empire had two halves, and only the western one lost its emperor in 476. 476 is the usual date, but Julius Nepos still claimed the western throne until 480.

One long debate about how Rome held its lands is about its frontiers. In 1976 Edward Luttwak argued that Rome had a “grand strategy” for its armies and frontiers. Glen Bowersock, reviewing Luttwak’s work, writes that this idea launched an intense debate. He also notes there is no documentary evidence for any such strategy, and no hint that Rome’s leaders were conscious of one. He adds that Luttwak was well aware of this problem.

How sure: Unsettled whether Rome planned its frontier defence is still debated, and the written record does not show such a plan.

Something to notice: a pattern that looks planned from far away may not have been planned at the time. For how the western half ended, see our page on the fall of Rome.

3. The eastern Roman, or Byzantine, empire (330 to 1453)

Its people called themselves Romans, and Roman emperors ruled in Constantinople until 1453.

Constantinople had been an imperial capital since the emperor Constantine founded it in 330. Anthony Kaldellis notes that the people we now call Byzantines called themselves Romans. On 29 May 1453 an Ottoman army led by Sultan Mehmed II took Constantinople, ending the eastern Roman, or Byzantine, empire.

By our count, that is close to 1,500 years counted from Augustus, and over 1,100 counted from 330.

Luttwak later argued that the Byzantines dropped the old Roman frontier system, which he says was too expensive for their reduced resources. In his account they learned the advantages of turning enemies away with payments, without a battle. Bowersock notes that this strategy is documented in military treatises from the sixth and tenth centuries. He also warns that one surviving envoy’s account may, to some extent, skew our picture of Byzantine policy.

How sure: Moderate the military treatises are real evidence, but this is one author’s reading, and a reviewer flags thin spots in the sources.

Something to notice: avoiding a fight can be a strategy, not only a weakness.

4. The Holy Roman Empire (800 or 962 to 1806)

Counted from 800 it lasted just over a thousand years, and one historian argues it did so by never becoming a centralised state.

The Oxford historian Peter Wilson dates it from Charlemagne’s coronation on Christmas Day 800 to August 1806. He writes that Emperor Francis II dissolved it then to stop Napoleon taking over its legacy. From 962, he adds, whoever was German king was the main candidate for the imperial title. Other historians start it in 962, when Otto I was crowned emperor; one overview says that year is usually seen as its start. By our count, that is just over a thousand years from 800, or about 840 from 962.

Wilson writes that none of its rulers tried to build a centralised state with one system of laws. Instead it grew into a layered system, largely beyond the emperor’s direct control but still under his authority. People saw it as the distant guarantee of their own local customs. He says it absorbed shocks like the Reformation and the Thirty Years War, though its arrangements grew rigid in the eighteenth century.

Rorotoko’s summary of his interview puts it in one line: the empire endured a millennium precisely by not becoming a centralised national monarchy.

How sure: Moderate this is one leading historian’s argument, from his book Heart of Europe, and other historians may weigh the reasons differently.

Something to notice: in your own groups, ask whether people stay because of the centre or because they are left alone.

02One state or ruling house, many centuries

These six are each counted as one state or ruling house by the historians cited, and the sources say more about why for some than for others.

5. Kush (about 2000 BC to after AD 300)

Kush, on the Nile in what is now northern Sudan, is counted as lasting more than two thousand years, with several centuries of Egyptian rule in the middle.

Geoff Emberling writes that Kush first appears in the record around 2000 BC and lasted more than two millennia, collapsing after AD 300. The Swiss archaeological mission at Kerma writes that the Egyptian king Thutmose I conquered the Kingdom of Kush. It says Egypt lost control of Nubia around the 11th century BC. It adds that the next three centuries of the region’s history are obscure. So the “more than two millennia” counts Kush as one across several centuries of Egyptian rule and a gap in the record. Its kings conquered and ruled Egypt as the Twenty-fifth Dynasty, about 750 to 664 BC. A later phase, centred on the city of Meroe, was in power for almost 600 years, between 250 BC and AD 350.

Emberling says Kush kept contacts with Egypt to the north and with other parts of Africa. He says that when Kush is called little known, that has more to do with how racism in scholarship obscured it. He also points to how few of its settlements have been excavated.

So what kept Kush going is still a research question.

How sure: Limited the span is one specialist’s count and includes Egyptian rule, and few settlements have been dug, so why it lasted is still open.

Something to notice: “little known” can say as much about who studied a place as about the place.

6. Kanem-Borno (11th to 19th century)

One family ruled around Lake Chad from the 11th century to the 19th, and moved its base when it lost its first homeland.

Rémi Dewière writes that the Sayfawa dynasty ruled Kanem from the 11th century and were its first rulers to adopt Sunni Maliki Islam. In the 14th century they moved to Borno and restored their authority, while another dynasty took over Kanem. Borno’s sultans built close diplomatic and trade ties with the Mediterranean world, from Morocco to Mecca. In the 19th century the Kanemi dynasty replaced the Sayfawa and ruled until 1897.

The overview describes trade across the Sahara and a rich written Islamic culture. It does not single out one reason the dynasty lasted.

How sure: Limited the dates and the move come from a recent scholarly overview, which describes the state rather than testing why it lasted.

Something to notice: losing your first home base does not have to be the end.

7. Aksum (1st century to the 7th, 8th or 10th)

Aksum, in the highlands of northern Ethiopia, was a major trading power for six centuries or more.

UNESCO describes the Aksumite kingdom as lasting from the 1st to the 8th centuries AD. A scholarly overview says it lasted until the 7th century. UNESCO’s short description puts its political decline in the 10th century. UNESCO calls it the most powerful state between the Eastern Roman Empire and Persia. It says Aksum commanded the ivory trade with Sudan, and its fleets controlled the Red Sea trade through the port of Adulis.

The sources we read describe its wealth and trade. They do not argue for a single reason it lasted.

How sure: Limited the end date ranges from the 7th to the 10th century across the sources, and they describe its trade rather than test why it lasted.

Something to notice: control of a route can matter as much as control of land.

8. The Ottoman Empire (early 1300s to 1922)

The Ottomans ruled for about six centuries, and two historians point to their flexibility.

Karen Barkey traces the empire from a “brokered” frontier state in the early fourteenth century. The Turkish Grand Assembly abolished the Ottoman sultanate on 1 November 1922.

In her book, Barkey’s argument is that flexible ways of keeping legitimacy, the cooperation of diverse elites, and control over resources explain its long life. The book’s summary calls it a negotiated empire. Şevket Pamuk argues that the central bureaucracy adapted with flexibility and pragmatism. He says this let the empire outlast other empires of its time in Asia and western Europe. But he adds that, because it worked mainly to preserve the old order, it tended to hold back private wealth and a broad power base. In the end, he writes, that led to the empire’s break-up.

How sure: Moderate two scholars reach a similar answer from different angles, and one of them says the bureaucracy’s aim of preserving the old order had a cost.

Something to notice: a habit that keeps something going can also hold it back later.

9. The Khmer Empire (9th to 15th century)

The Khmer kings ruled from Angkor for five to six centuries, and its water system shapes how researchers explain its end.

UNESCO’s page puts the Khmer Empire in the 9th to 14th centuries in one place. In another, it gives its capitals from the 9th to the 15th. The Angkor site covers about 400 square kilometres of temples and hydraulic structures: basins, dykes, reservoirs and canals.

A 2010 study of tree rings from southern Vietnam found decades-long droughts mixed with intense monsoons at Angkor in the 14th and 15th centuries. The droughts were long and severe enough that they would have affected the city’s water supply and farming. Big monsoon years damaged its water control systems. The authors say this, together with other factors, contributed to Angkor’s decline.

So the water system that fed the city also left it exposed when the weather changed.

How sure: Moderate the climate evidence is strong, but the authors say it was one factor among several.

Something to notice: the thing you depend on most is also where a shock hits hardest.

10. The Parthian Empire (about 250 BC to about AD 226)

The Parthians ruled Iran for about 475 years, and their coins carried an old Persian royal title and the word “Philhellene”, which may have been aimed at Greek subjects.

The Encyclopaedia Iranica dates the Parthian dynasty from about 250 BC to about AD 226. Klaus Schippmann writes there that it lasted roughly 475 years. He calls it the most important power in the ancient East alongside Rome, even in weak phases. He notes that they saw themselves as heirs of the Achaemenids, the earlier Persian kings. They used the Achaemenid title “King of Kings” on their coins. He suggests the word “Philhellene” on their coins may have helped win the cooperation of the Greeks in their empire.

Among the reasons it fell, he names tension between the king and the nobility, and wars on two fronts.

How sure: Moderate the dates are given as approximate, the coin titles are documented, and the reading of “Philhellene” is offered as a possibility.

Something to notice: the same leader can speak to different groups in the words each one values.

03Where to learn more

• Other empires on this site: the Mongol empire, the Aztec and Inca empires, Ashoka, Cyrus the Great and Alexander the Great.
• The fall of Constantinople in context: our page on 25 turning points in history.
• For depth, Peter Wilson’s interview on Rorotoko and the Encyclopaedia Iranica entries listed below are free to read.

04Quick answers

05Use this

06Quick quiz

How we checked this · Last checked November 2026

• We read scholarly chapter abstracts, encyclopedia entries, UNESCO World Heritage pages, a university teaching timeline, a book review in the London Review of Books, and an interview with the historian Peter Wilson.
• Where sources give different dates, such as the end of Aksum or the start of the Holy Roman Empire, the card shows them. Where the sources describe an empire without explaining why it lasted, the card says so.
• The Mongol, Aztec and Inca empires, Ashoka, Cyrus and Alexander have their own pages on this site, so they are linked rather than repeated here.

How we check every article →