- multi-ethnic, multi-territorial state controlled by a single sovereign authority
- defining features: territorial expansion, centralized power, diverse subject populations, extraction of resources from periphery to center
- historical empires: Akkadian, Persian, Roman, Mongol, Ottoman, British, Russian, Spanish, Chinese (Qin through Qing)
- Roman Empire: law, roads, aqueducts, citizenship as integration tool, 500+ years of Western dominance
- British Empire: largest territorial extent in history, spread common law, English language, and parliamentary systems globally
- empires rise through military conquest, trade dominance, or technological superiority; they fall through overextension, internal decay, or loss of legitimacy
- information empires: Google, Meta, Apple control attention and data at imperial scale
- cyber offers an alternative to information empires: decentralized knowledge graph owned by participants rather than extracted by a center
- see also sovereignty, city-state, revolution, federation, decentralization