San Marino is in the Italian Peninsula but they're not Italian, they are an independent city-state.

This is another quick example of where the country and landmass are named after the same thing. People are based on what landmass they come from, but what nation or state they are from.

I am not an American, I am a Canadian.

The SPQR was the official name of the Roman Republic. I can't remember what Rome was called under the Empire.

It was the name of the government, but that does not make it the name of the Republic. No one went into trade relations or to war with the SPQR. At least, that has always been my understanding of it.

Well obviously that 700millions was not right.
It's just a point of view, and to be fair I'm realizing it's not entirely tenable if you speak in english, as we are doing, so sorry for buzzing a bit out of context.

It's somewhat tenable if you speak in spanish, however. I don't really care, but if happens that you speak in spanish with a spanish-american, I'd suggest not to say "americano" for USA people. Actually, people usually won't get offended, but they'd feel more comfortable if you say the technical spanish-american name.

It's just a suggestion and not a very important one.

this last was for fasces

Also the convention is different in USA itself, btw, where every spanish speaker is o.k. with "americano" for USA people, and "latino" for latinamerican (which outside USA tends to be "latinoamericano" keeping "latino" for what it actually means: related to latin. But tendencies are changing regarding this last point, due to the "american" influence)

Any way, so that people don't get angry with my digressions, I'll rescue the values we had last. With a clarification and votes added.



American (USA) Empire 10 (-1) (In which exact sense do you call it an "empire"?)
British Empire 16
Roman Empire 18
Mongolian Empire 11 (+1) It's an impressive empire not base in esclavism nor savage capitalism, where warriors had still honor codes.
(generic) Chinese Empire 14
Achaemenid Persian Empire 12
Japanese Empire 5
Ottoman Empire 11
Akkadian Empire 8
(pre-Ptolemy) Egyptian Empire 9
(generic) Islamic Empire 12
Byzantine Empire 10
Mughal Empire 10
Comanche Indian Empire 7 more of a nation then an empire

I have listed a sort of achievements and good qualities of the Roman Empire, while the Mongols have only one significant (+1) quality compared to others in the list : the undisputed military power, which is maybe the best quality in order to rise to the rank of “Empire”, but not certainly the best quality to hold that rank and to leave a good heritage in history. I am not isolated in this belief and others have expressed my opinion.

Now, as kaner suggested, even if we do not substitute the debatable question “what’s the best in history” with the more appropriate “what historical empire are you the most interested in?” , the voting rule is just… poor.
It’s clear that will prevail the preference of the users most committed to the thread and not the most commonly accepted opinion, regardless of the content of opinions.
If this is the rule we’re going to play through, I think I’ll pass.

A special thanks to Mertvaya Ruka, I enjoyed the discussion you started and I’m happy it did not degenerate in a fight and/or was swarmed by trolls as usually happens in webdiplomacy.com

ok, I think I can go again:

American (USA) Empire 10
British Empire 16
Roman Empire 19 (+1)
Mongolian Empire 11
(generic) Chinese Empire 14
Achaemenid Persian Empire 12
Japanese Empire 5
Ottoman Empire 11
Akkadian Empire 8
(pre-Ptolemy) Egyptian Empire 9
(generic) Islamic Empire 12
Byzantine Empire 10
Mughal Empire 10
Comanche Indian Empire 6 (-1)

fasces, short-cut for USA is United States, not America...
America means North America and South America, big difference...
And they call theirselves Americans because that's true as well, but Mexicans are Americans too, but they can be more specific, for the United States there's no specific name for the people there, and since American is clearer than human or something like that you say American...

Continuing on with the "American" debate:

We derive "American" from our name: United States of America. Hence Americans. The only other term that would roll off the tongue easily while still evoking the culture of the USA would be what? Yankee? Unfortunately that term already has other meanings: To Europeans (from what I understand), it can mean a person from the USA, to a person from the south part of the USA (the old CSA), it can refer to a northerner, and to a northerner, it could refer to someone from the New York area (sometimes). You can see how that would be confusing to call everyone from the USA a Yankee.

Moving on, people generally derive what they call themselves from the name of their country, not the continent (with some exceptions like Australia which is both a country and continent name). Hence, people from France are French, people from Saudi Arabia are Saudi Arabian, people from Estados Unidos Mexicanos are called Mexicans, and people from the United States of America are Americans. It makes perfect sense really. I don't quite understand why anyone would assume that someone is referring to the continent of North America when they say "American". I mean, when people call themselves "American", or "Mexican", or "French", or anything, they're referring to their nationality. And since the USA is the ONLY country with "America" in it's name (as far as I know), when one says "American" to refer to nationality, there's only one country they can actually be talking about: the United States of America.


As a final question: Steephie: Are you from the US? Or from another country? I'm honestly curious since as far as my experience is concerned (from USA), when people in the US say "America", they are NOT referring to the continents of N. and S. America. Perhaps to people in "the old world", "America" means N. and S. America, but here in the "new world", when we want to say North America, we say North America. South America is South America. I have hardly ever heard anyone refer to the two continents as "America" outside of a world history course when they're talking about the age of exploration when Europeans first colonized the "new world".

@Decima, thank you! I think we've at least proven that we have enough people here for social discussions. Now to encourage this further!

American (USA) Empire 10
British Empire 16
Roman Empire 20! (+1)
Mongolian Empire 11
(generic) Chinese Empire 14
Achaemenid Persian Empire 12
Japanese Empire 5
Ottoman Empire 11
Akkadian Empire 8
(pre-Ptolemy) Egyptian Empire 9
(generic) Islamic Empire 11 (-1)
Byzantine Empire 10
Mughal Empire 10
Comanche Indian Empire 6

American (USA) Empire 9(-1)
British Empire 17(+1)
Roman Empire 20
Mongolian Empire 11
(generic) Chinese Empire 14
Achaemenid Persian Empire 12
Japanese Empire 5
Ottoman Empire 11
Akkadian Empire 8
(pre-Ptolemy) Egyptian Empire 9
(generic) Islamic Empire 11
Byzantine Empire 10
Mughal Empire 10
Comanche Indian Empire 6

American (USA) Empire 8(-1)
British Empire 17
Roman Empire 21(+1)
Mongolian Empire 11
(generic) Chinese Empire 14
Achaemenid Persian Empire 12
Japanese Empire 5
Ottoman Empire 11
Akkadian Empire 8
(pre-Ptolemy) Egyptian Empire 9
(generic) Islamic Empire 11
Byzantine Empire 10
Mughal Empire 10
Comanche Indian Empire 6

@drano019: First of all: I'm from The Netherlands in Europe...

Now, to start at the top: Yankee means someone from the New York area to me, but I only use it on the forum so I'm not sure about other Europeans...

For the second part: I agree with you that, if someone tells me now he/she's an American, I can be pretty sure that you're from the United States. but if we're talking about something less obvious about nationality such as the population of America, I'm not sure if that means the United States, North America or North America and South America together...

And in my opinion it was absolutely not clear we were talking about the USA when someone said the American Empire, because the USA is definitely not an empire, while there probably were some Empires in America (North and South). So that was not obvious at all to me...

Not a big issue though :P

I thought we had to give reasons for our vote decisions?

American (USA) Empire 8
British Empire 17
Roman Empire 21
Mongolian Empire 12 (+1)
(generic) Chinese Empire 14
Achaemenid Persian Empire 12
Japanese Empire 5
Ottoman Empire 11
Akkadian Empire 8
(pre-Ptolemy) Egyptian Empire 9
(generic) Islamic Empire 11
Byzantine Empire 10
Mughal Empire 10
Comanche Indian Empire 5 (-1)

For the Mongols it all comes down to square miles of territory, trade, safety internally, and the fear they invoked in their enemy. On top of that even once the greater empire broke up it spawned smaller empires some of which were very powerful in their own right.

On the Comanche, I will not deny that they were fierce, powerful, and organized, I just think in the scheme of things if you are looking at Native American empires you would be better served with the Aztec, Mayans, Inca, Mississippian, etc. It would be hard for me to vote an empire towards the top of the list when I can think of other empires in reasonably close proximity geographically that were more powerful or prominent, no matter what the chronological/time period difference was.

American (USA) Empire 9 (+1)
British Empire 17
Roman Empire 21
Mongolian Empire 12
(generic) Chinese Empire 14
Achaemenid Persian Empire 12
Japanese Empire 5
Ottoman Empire 11
Akkadian Empire 8
(pre-Ptolemy) Egyptian Empire 9
(generic) Islamic Empire 11
Byzantine Empire 10
Mughal Empire 10
Comanche Indian Empire 4 (-1)

America is the most powerful empire around today. The anti-americans in this thread deny that America is an empire yet are probably the same ones that have a problem with American imperialism. The invasion of Iraq, massive military budget, global hegemony are all evidence of America being a powerful and large empire.

The mexican and spanish wars were also very much wars about empire. Those who claim America isn't an empire just because they are capitalist don't know what they are talking about.

If your negging America for that reason then neg Britain as well. Britain didn't invade North America or India or South Africa. Private corporations claimed the land and all the profits. Britain was more pro-corporation back then then America is today.

"I thought we had to give reasons for our vote decisions?"
I did too...

Before the UFC I would have said Rome because of gladiators, imperialism at its best when citizens are so bored they pit losers against each other over and over and some win glory and then it creates a new subculture of people raised specifically for this kind of combat and then we glorify it(but still shun the losers)

So my vote is for AMURICA!

American (USA) Empire 9 (-1)
British Empire 17
Roman Empire 21
Mongolian Empire 13 (+1)
(generic) Chinese Empire 14
Achaemenid Persian Empire 12(-1)
Japanese Empire 5
Ottoman Empire 11
Akkadian Empire 8
(pre-Ptolemy) Egyptian Empire 9
(generic) Islamic Empire 11
Byzantine Empire 10
Mughal Empire 10
Comanche Indian Empire 3

@Fuzzy: Comanche has 4 not 3 and your only allowed to minus one not 2. Also please gives reasons for your plusses and minusses.

American (USA) Empire 9
British Empire 17
Roman Empire 22
Mongolian Empire 13
(generic) Chinese Empire 14
Achaemenid Persian Empire 12
Japanese Empire 4
Ottoman Empire 11
Akkadian Empire 8
(pre-Ptolemy) Egyptian Empire 9
(generic) Islamic Empire 11
Byzantine Empire 10
Mughal Empire 10
Comanche Indian Empire 4

Romans +1, Japanese -1. As others have said, Japan didn't hold onto its conquests at all. Besides, they could have easily tapped into anti-European, anti-colonial sentiment, but instead they simply replaced the old despots as the new ones. Not to mention their determination to bring the USA into a war it could scarcely lose and which it had no desire to join. As for the Romans, they set the benchmark for Western empires. Their language became the language of law, science, and religion. Their roads still exist today. Their leaders still inspire us today. Knowledge of their literature and history is still pretty much a sine qua non of being considered cultured in the Western world today, and even simple phrases of theirs, e.g. "e.g.", survive in our daily vocabulary.

American (USA) Empire 9
British Empire 16 (-1)
Roman Empire 22
Mongolian Empire 13
(generic) Chinese Empire 14
Achaemenid Persian Empire 12
Japanese Empire 5 (+1)
Ottoman Empire 11
Akkadian Empire 8
(pre-Ptolemy) Egyptian Empire 9
(generic) Islamic Empire 11
Byzantine Empire 10
Mughal Empire 10
Comanche Indian Empire 4

As an anti-nationalist, I cant give anyone pluses for imperialism. This said Japan never held their gains so really they're the best of a bad bunch
Minus to the British for being the largest, relative to their technological advantage compared to the defenders they invaded (as in, others may have been as big, but they fought on more even ground - Britain could just turn up and plant flags)

American (USA) Empire 10 (+1)
British Empire 16
Roman Empire 22
Mongolian Empire 13
(generic) Chinese Empire 14
Achaemenid Persian Empire 12
Japanese Empire 5
Ottoman Empire 11
Akkadian Empire 8
(pre-Ptolemy) Egyptian Empire 9
(generic) Islamic Empire 11
Byzantine Empire 10
Mughal Empire 10
Comanche Indian Empire 3 (-1)
already listed multiple reasons

I still don't understand why USA is on the list and why someone would +1 it... Could anyone tell me in what way it is an empire?

In the same way that *any* other of the listed historical powers are empires.

"The term empire derives from the Latin imperium (power, authority). Politically, an empire is a geographically extensive group of states and peoples (ethnic groups) united and ruled either by a monarch (emperor, empress) or an oligarchy."

"An empire is a state with politico-military dominion of populations who are culturally and ethnically distinct from the imperial (ruling) ethnic group and its culture[3] — unlike a federation, an extensive state voluntarily composed of autonomous states and peoples."

By the above descriptions/definitions, courtesy of Wikipedia The United States, much like it's British predecessor, was an empire that evolved into a federation, or voluntarily participating states and peoples over time. For the purposes of the above discussion, it is/was absolutely an empire. The sole possible argument against it is that it was never ruled by a monach or an oligarchy. Are you throwing out the British Empire because they are no longer "ruled" by their monarchy?

And even at the height of the British Empire, they were effectively a democracy because the House of Commons had more power then the crown.