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An empire (also known technically, abstractly or disparagingly as imperium) comprises a set of regions locally ruled by governors, viceroys or client kings in the name of an emperor. By extension, one can classify as an empire any large, multi-ethnic state ruled from a single center. Like other states, an empire maintains its political structure at least partly by coercion. Land-based empires (such as Russia or the Soviet Union) tend to extend in a contiguous area; sea-borne empires (also known as thalassocracies: the Athenian and British empires provide examples) may feature looser structures and more scattered territories.
Compare the concept of "empire" with that of a federation, where a large, multi-ethnic state -- or even an ethnically homogeneous one like Australia or a small area like Switzerland -- relies on mutual agreement amongst its component political units.
Also, compare physical empires with potentially more abstract or less formally structured hegemonies; and their spheres of influence with those of superpowerA superpower is a state with the ability to influence events or project power on a wide scale. In modern terms, this may imply an entity with a strong economy, a large population, and strong armed forces, including air power and satellite capabilities, ans.
The modern term "empire" derives from the Latin imperiumImperium was a concept of legal authority in ancient Rome. A man owning imperium had absolute authority within the scope of his magistracy or promagistracy (see below), but could be vetoed or overruled by a magistrate or promagistrate owning a higher degr, a word coined in what became possibly the most famous example of this sort of political structure, the Roman Empire60 and 400 with major cities. During this time only Dacia and Mesopotamia were added to the Empire but were lost before 300. The Roman Empire is the term conventionally used to describe the Roman state in the centuries following its reorganization under t founded in 31 BC. For many centuries, the term "Empire" in the West applied exclusively to states which considered themselves to be successors to the Roman Empire, such as the Byzantine EmpireThe Byzantine Empire or Eastern Roman Empire was the eastern section of the Roman Empire, with its capital at Constantinople (modern Istanbul), which remained in existence after the fall of Rome in the 5th century. The Byzantine period is usually consider, the Holy Roman EmpireThe Holy Roman Empire ( German: Heiliges Romisches Reich was a political conglomeration of lands in western and central Europe in the Middle Ages. Emerging from the eastern part of the Frankish realm after its division in the Treaty of Verdun ( 843), it l, or, later, the Russian Empire ruled from the "Third Rome" (Moscow). Over time, other monarchies which viewed themselves as greater in size and power than mere kingdomIn politics, a country over which a king or queen reigns, is a kingdom see: monarchy. In biological taxonomy (the study of the classification of organisms), the broadest category is a kingdom see: kingdom (biology).s used the name or its translation ( Bulgaria, for example), and Europeans came to apply the term "empire" to large non-European monarchies, such as the Empire of China or the Moghul Empire. The word eventually came to apply loosely to any entity meeting the criteria, whether a monarchy or not. In some cases synonyms of empire such as tsardom, realm or reich occur.
The actual political concept predates the Romans by several hundred years: empires began to appear soon after the first cities made the necessary administrative structures possible. The Akkadian Empire of Sargon of Akkad furnishes one of the earliest known examples.
Empires can accrete around different types of state. They have traditionally originated as powerful monarchies under the rule of a hereditary (or in some cases, self-appointed) emperor, but the so-called empires of Athens, Britain and the United States developed under democratic auspices.
Historically, most empires came into being as the result of a militarily strong state conquering other states and incorporating them into a larger political union. Typically, a monarchy or an oligarchy rooted in the original core territory would continue to dominate this union. Many ancient empires maintained control of their subject peoples by controlling the supply of a vital resource, usually water; historians refer to such régimes as " hydraulic empires". The introduction of a common religion also often strengthened empires, as occurred (pace Edward Gibbon) with the adoption of Christianity under Constantine I of the Roman Empire. And cultural influence played a large part in the survival of the Chinese empire and of its semi-imperial sphere of influence.
An empire can mutate into some other form of polity. Thus the Bernese empire of conquest no longer appears so imperial, but its territories have become absorbed into the canton of Bern or become cantons or parts of cantons elsewhere in the Swiss Confederation. The Holy Roman Empire, itself in a sense a re-constitution of the Roman Empire, underwent many transformations in its long history, fissuring extensively, experimenting with federalism and re-constituting itself as the Austrian Empire - vastly different in nature and in territory. The former second British Empire has spawned a loose multi-national Commonwealth of Nations, and the old French colonial empire has also left traces of its existence in cultural networks and associations. The Soviet Empire leaves behind it the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).
An Emperor-based empire can readily become (say) a republic by means of a coup ( Brazil, 1889, Central African Empire, (1979)); or it can become a republic with its dominions reduced to a core territory ( Germany (1918 - 1919), Ottoman Empire (1918 - 1923)). The breakup of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918 provides an example of a multi-ethnic superstate fissuring into multiple constituent or new parts: the republics, kingdoms or provinces of Austria, Hungary, Transylvania, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Czechoslovakia, Ruthenia, Galicia...
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