European empires

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For classical empires in Europe see:

• Various Greek Empires
• Roman Republic (Sixth century BC to 1st century BC)
• Roman Empire (1st century BC to 4th century AD)
• Byzantine Empire (330AD to 1453AD)
• Frankish Empire (509AD to 843AD)

Significant European empires of the last thousand years included the following.

Dates are given that cover the major span of the empires' existences, but in most cases small overseas territories or even fully-integrated regions are still controlled by European countries (e.g. Réunion and French Guiana are part of modern France).

• Holy Roman Empire (800 to 1806)
• British Empire (approx. 1607 to present)
• French Empire (1804 to present)
• Spanish Empire (1402 to 1975)
• Portuguese Empire (1415 to 1999)
• Dutch Empire (17th century to present)
• Austrian empire (1526 to 1918)
• Danish colonial empire (13th century to 1953)
• Belgian colonial empire (1901 to 1962)
• German colonial empire (1883 to 1919)
• Italian empire (1889 to 1943)
• Bulgarian Empire (681 to 1018 and 1185 to 1396)
• Serbian Empire (1346 to 1371)
• Swedish colonial empire (1638 to 1663 and 1785 to 1878)
• Swedish Empire (1611 to 1718)

Also see: Russian empire, American empire and the 1980s/Ronald Reagan concept of Soviet Empire (as opposed to Soviet Union).