The process of forming states is ongoing. Some fall apart, others unite. Some are fragmented, some are enlarged. Therefore, the area of the countries of the world differs at different periods of their development.
Countries on a geographical map
If you look at the geographical map of the world, you can see that it is as if sewn from flaps. Some flaps are smaller, others are large. The countries of the world vary by area in occupied territories. So, Russia, the largest power to date with an area of more than seventeen million square kilometers, is forty million times larger than the Vatican, the smallest state in the world.
In general, the area of the countries of the world is a relative concept. Today, the territory is huge, and tomorrow it can decrease significantly. Today, almost two hundred states officially exist in the world. Previously, during the period of medieval fragmentation, for example, each individual inheritance was a state, and only in Europe - the smallest continent - there were many times more countries than today in the whole world.
The biggest states today
The largest countries in the world in terms of area today are the Russian Federation (having an area of 17.1 million square kilometers), Canada (9.9 million), China (9.6 million), the United States (9.5 million), Brazil ( 8.5 million), Australia (7.7 million). All these huge states are unevenly populated and include significant areas of virtually uninhabited territories. In the Russian Federation and Canada, this is the taiga and the Arctic, in the United States of America, China and Australia, these are deserts, in Brazil, the Amazonian jungle. And this applies not only to these states.
In the first twenty countries with the largest area of the world, a significant part of the territories is not populated due to the jungle and deserts. About cold as a reason for the lack of population of the territory can be insignificantly talked about in relation to Argentina. The largest states of Europe (Russia is a country of two continents) are inferior in size not only to the largest, but also quite average states of Africa. The largest country in Africa - Sudan, although it closes the top ten world leaders in territory, can not be compared in size with the same Canada, China, Brazil or Australia.
Greatest powers in history
From a historical point of view, Russia today is a relatively small state.
If we consider the area of the countries of the world at their peak, then the British Empire reached its greatest size by the beginning of the twentieth century - more than forty-two million square kilometers. The Mongol Empire at the turn of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries had an area of thirty-eight million square kilometers. The Russian Empire (before the sale of Alaska) had a territory of almost twenty-four, and the Soviet Union, before its collapse, was more than twenty-two million square kilometers. The Spanish Empire had more than twenty million square kilometers of territories by the end of the eighteenth century. If you look at the area of the countries of the world today and during the periods of their highest prosperity, then China and Russia have slightly decreased, and such huge countries as Turkey, Portugal, Iran, Japan, and Italy have shrunk significantly in size.
