Curated category
Former kingdoms
- Indo-Greek KingdomThe Indo-Greek Kingdom was a political world that should not have existed. Greek-speaking kings ruling from cities like Taxila and Sagala, in the heart of…
- UrukUruk was once the largest city on earth. Around 3100 BC, somewhere between 40,000 and 90,000 people lived within its boundaries and surrounding land, in a…
- HittitesThe Hittites built one of the first major civilizations of the Bronze Age in West Asia, yet for centuries the only place anyone could read their name was the…
- Kingdom of EnglandThe Kingdom of England was born on the 12th of July 927, when the monarchs of Britain gathered at Eamont Bridge, in what is now Cumbria, to recognise a…
- NorthumbriaNorthumbria was a medieval English kingdom that survived from 654 to 1066 AD, straddling what is now Northern England and Southern Scotland.
- Kingdom of Italy (Napoleonic)The Kingdom of Italy was born on the 17th of March 1805, not from centuries of unified rule, but from a single decision by one man who was already emperor of…
- Kingdom of PrussiaThe Kingdom of Prussia was proclaimed on the 18th of January 1701, when Frederick III of Brandenburg crowned himself "King in Prussia" in an act that…
- Kingdom of RomaniaOn the 24th of January 1859, Alexandru Ioan Cuza was elected prince of both Moldavia and Wallachia. This event united two distinct territories under a single…
- Kingdom of SerbiaThe Kingdom of Serbia lasted only thirty-six years, from 1882 to 1918, yet in that brief span it fought four wars, doubled its population, and dissolved…
- Kingdom of FranceThe Kingdom of France began not with a crown placed on a French king's head, but with a treaty signed in 843 that divided a dying empire.
- Kingdom of Great BritainThe Kingdom of Great Britain came into being on the 1st of May 1707, not with a battle or a conquest, but with a signature.
- Hanthawaddy kingdomKing Wareru established the Hanthawaddy kingdom in 1287 after the collapse of the Pagan kingdom. This new polity ruled lower Burma as a nominal vassal state…
- EphesusEphesus once held a building so vast that the ancient writer Pausanias called it the largest structure in the world. That building was the Temple of Artemis…
- Ayutthaya KingdomThe Ayutthaya Kingdom rose from a cluster of port towns on the Lower Chao Phraya Valley and lasted from 1351 to 1767. European travellers in the early 16th…
- Kingdom of JerusalemThe Kingdom of Jerusalem was born on a specific summer day: the 15th of July, 1099, when Crusader armies stormed the holy city after a weeks-long siege.
- Kingdom of GreeceThe Kingdom of Greece was born from a secret society formed in 1814 by three men who met in Odesa. Nikolaos Skoufas, Emmanuil Xanthos, and Athanasios…
- Kingdom of Hungary (1920–1946)The Kingdom of Hungary, as it existed between 1920 and 1946, had no king. That was the paradox at the heart of this central European state.
- Kingdom of ItalyOn the 17th of March 1861, Victor Emmanuel II of Sardinia was proclaimed King of Italy in Turin. This event marked the birth of a new state from decades of…
- Sukhothai KingdomThe Sukhothai Kingdom named itself for happiness. The Thai term Sukhothai draws from Sanskrit and Pali roots, sukha meaning happiness and udaya meaning dawn…
- MycenaeMycenae sits on a hill 274 metres above the Argive plain in north-eastern Greece, and it has not been a living city for more than three thousand years.
- Kingdom of East AngliaThe Kingdom of East Anglia existed for roughly three and a half centuries before a Danish army erased it from the map in 869.
- Kingdom of PortugalThe Kingdom of Portugal was a monarchy that endured from the mid-12th century all the way to the early 20th century, outlasting empires and dynasties across…
- TroyTroy sits in present-day Çanakkale, Turkey, where the same patch of earth has been occupied, destroyed, and rebuilt so many times that archaeologists count…
- United Kingdom of Great Britain and IrelandThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was born on the 1st of January 1801, stitched together by the Acts of Union after a failed rebellion and a…
- Kingdom of MysoreThe Kingdom of Mysore endured for over five centuries, from around 1399 to 1950, outlasting empires, resisting colonial conquest longer than almost any rival…
- Kingdom of HungaryThe Kingdom of Hungary endured for nearly a thousand years, from 1000 to 1946. That span covers crusades, Ottoman sieges, Habsburg wars, a communist…
- Kingdom of NaplesThe Kingdom of Naples bore an official name that almost nobody used: the Kingdom of Sicily on this side of the lighthouse.
- MauretaniaIn the early 1st century, the geographer Strabo recorded a people called Maûroi by Greeks and Mauri by Romans. This name described a populous nation situated…
- MaldivesThe Maldives sits an average of just 1.5 metres above the sea that surrounds it. Its highest natural point reaches only 2.4 metres, which makes it the…
- Kingdom of Hungary (1301–1526)Andrew III died on the 14th of January 1301. His death created a power vacuum that allowed about a dozen lords to seize control of royal castles and counties.
- Kingdom of KhotanThe Kingdom of Khotan endured for over a thousand years on the southern rim of the Taklamakan Desert, one of the most arid places on earth.
- Bosporan KingdomThe Bosporan Kingdom holds a distinction that most ancient states never claimed: it was the longest surviving Roman client kingdom in history.