Whatwerethemostpowerfulcountriesthroughouthistory?历史上最强大的国家是哪个?quora网贴翻译YvanTestu,reads\"ForeignAffairs\"magazine读

What were the most powerful countries throughout history?

历史上最强大的国家是哪个?

quora网贴翻译

Yvan Testu, reads "Foreign Affairs" magazine 读《外交事务》杂志To speak of a Country throughout History is an anachronism since only Empires existed throughout History

在“历史上的国家”说法是不合时宜的，因为历史上只有帝国存在。

The concept of country ( Nation state ) started to be implemented during the second half of the XIX century with a high production of countries with the dissolution of the German, Austro Hungarian and Ottoman empires

国家(民族国家)的概念在19世纪后半期才开始产生，在德国、南奥匈帝国和奥斯曼帝国的瓦解下，国家的大量产生。

An another round after WW II created nations in Africa and in Indochina with the dissolution of the french and the british empires and finally in Central Asia with the dissolution of USSR.

二战后的另一轮，法国和大英帝国解体后，在非洲和印度支那建立了许多国家，最后是苏联解体后中亚诞生了很多国家。

So empires can be ranked by their overreach List of largest empires or by the infrastructure they left

帝国可以用最大帝国的继承人名单，或者他们离开的基础设施来归类

My favorite is extremely overlooked

我的最爱被忽视了

The (First) Persian Empire

波斯第一帝国

The Achaemenid Persian Empire was founded by Cyrus the Great around 550 B.C.E., who went by the title of King of Kings (Shahanshah). Although the Persian Empire came to an inglorious end at the hands of Alexander the Great in 330 B.C.E., it had a lasting legacy on the subsequent development of world civilizations and future empires. Indeed, the Persian Empire was a pivotal empire because it was the first true empire that set the standard of what it meant to be an empire for future ones.

阿契曼尼波斯帝国是由塞勒斯大帝于公元前550年左右建立的。他的名号是“王中之王”(Shahanshah)。尽管波斯帝国在公元前330年的亚历山大大帝的统治下出现了一个不太好的结局。它对后来的世界文明和未来帝国的发展有着持久的影响。事实上，波斯帝国是一个关键的帝国因为它是第一个真正的帝国它为未来的帝国设定了一个帝国的标准。

The Persian Empire existed at a unique time in history, when most of the oikumene, or civilized, settled, populated world was concentrated in or near the Middle East. As a result, the Persian Empire, which dominated most of the Middle East, ruled over a greater percentage of the world’s population than any other empire in history. Indeed, in 480 B.C.E., the empire had a population of approximately 49.4 million people, which was 44 percent of the global population at that time. The Persian Empire was the first empire to connect multiple world regions, including the Middle East, North Africa, Central Asia, India, Europe, and the Mediterranean world. It jumpstarted the concept of empires in places like Greece and India.

波斯帝国存在于历史上一个独特的时期，当时的大多数国家，或文明的，定居的，人口密集的世界都集中在中东或中东附近。因此，统治中东大部分地区的波斯帝国统治着世界人口的比例超过了历史上任何一个帝国。事实上,公元前480年帝国拥有大约4940万人口，占当时全球人口的44%。波斯帝国是第一个连接多个世界区域的帝国，包括中东、北非、中亚、印度、欧洲和地中海世界。它在希腊和印度等地开启了帝国的概念。

Such a large empire could only have been put together by military might, and the Persian Empire’s military achievements were significant, though they are often forgotten by its sudden demise at the hands of Alexander’s armies. Various Persian campaigns succeeded at subjugating most of the world’s advanced civilizations at the time including the Babylonians, Lydians, Egyptians, and the northwestern Hindu region of Gandhara, in today’s Pakistan. It should not be forgotten that, notwithstanding exaggeration and misinterpretation, the Persians believed that they achieved their goals in Greece and that more Greeks lived in the empire than not. The Persian Empire ushered in a period of harmony and peace in the Middle East for two hundred years, a feat that has seldom been replicated.

这样一个庞大的帝国只能由军事力量联合起来，波斯帝国的军事成就也很重要，尽管他们常常因为被亚历山大军队的突然灭亡而被遗忘。许多波斯战役成功地征服了当时世界上最先进的文明包括巴比伦人，吕底亚人，埃及人，以及印度西北部的犍陀罗地区，在今天的巴基斯坦。不可忘记的是，尽管有些夸张和误解，波斯人相信他们在希腊实现了他们的目标，而的希腊人生活在帝国中。波斯帝国在中东迎来了长达200年的和谐与和平时期，这一壮举很少被复制。

The Persian Empire’s legacy to the world in terms of imperial ideas include the use of a network of roads, a postal system, a single language for administration (Imperial Aramaic), autonomy for various ethnicities, and a bureaucracy. The Persian religion, Zoroastrianism, influenced the development of key concepts like free will and heaven and hell in Abrahamic religions through Judaism.

波斯帝国在帝国思想方面给世界留下的遗产包括:包括使用道路网络，邮政系统，单一语言管理，以及不同种族的自治权，以及官僚制度。波斯宗教，拜火教，通过犹太教，影响了自由意志、天堂和地狱等关键概念的发展。

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Christopher Gilmore, Undergraduate in History, lifelong history buff 历史本科生，终生历史爱好者

21st century - United States, People’s Republic of China, Russian Federation, United Kingdom, Republic of India, Republic of France (Iran, Pakistan, Israel, Saudi Arabia and others are up and comers)

21世纪的美国、中华人民共和国、俄罗斯联邦、英国、印度共和国、法国共和国(伊朗、巴基斯坦、以色列、沙特阿拉伯等国)

Late 20th century - United States, Soviet unx, United Kingdom, Republic of France, People’s Republic of China

20世纪末，美国，苏联，英国，法兰西共和国，中华人民共和国

Early 20th century - United Kingdom, Germany (both the Kaiserreich and Third Reich), United States, Republic of France, Russia (sort of), Japan

20世纪初，英国，德国(德意志帝国和第三帝国)，美国，法国，俄罗斯(某种程度上)，日本

19th century - United Kingdom, France (particularly the Napoleonic Empire), Russia, Prussia (Germany after 1871), Austria, United States (only after the American Civil War)

19世纪——英国，法国(尤其是拿破仑帝国)，俄国，普鲁士(1871年之后的德国)，奥地利，美国(仅在美国内战之后)

China, the Ottoman Empire, Spain, the Greek-speaking Byzantines, various Indian dynasties (Mughal and Gupta), and the various Islamic caliphates all enjoyed considerable periods under the sun beforehand (Imperial China’s was very lengthy). At the time of the Spanish arrival the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan in North America may have been the world’s largest city, while many African civilisations (Mali and Ethiopia/Aksum, amongst others) were famed for their wealth and power.

中国、奥斯曼帝国、西班牙、讲希腊语的拜占庭人、各种印度王朝(莫卧儿和笈多)，以及各种各样的伊斯兰帝国都在太阳底下享受了相当长的一段时间(中华帝国的历史非常长)。在西班牙人到达美洲的时候，北美的阿兹特克人的首都特诺奇蒂兰可能是世界上最大的城市，而许多非洲文明(马里和埃塞俄比亚/阿克苏姆和其他国家)以其财富和实力而闻名于世。