Geographic HistoryMap of the Byzantine Empire
On the Geographic History map, the Byzantine Empire appears from AD 396 to 1453. It reaches its largest mapped extent in AD 555: about 3 million km² across 160 provinces.
The Byzantine Empire was the eastern Roman Empire, ruled from Constantinople, and it outlived the western half by almost a thousand years; its people called themselves Romans. Under Justinian I in the 6th century it reconquered Italy and North Africa and built the Hagia Sophia, and it remained a Greek-speaking Orthodox Christian power for centuries. It ended when the Ottomans took Constantinople in 1453.
Mapped area over time
The Byzantine Empire on the world maps
Largest other states in AD 555
| State | Mapped area |
|---|---|
| Gokturks | 4 million km² |
| Sasanian Empire | 3 million km² |
| Liang dynasty | 2 million km² |
| Hephthalite Empire | 1.4 million km² |
| Oghuz | 1.1 million km² |
| Northern Wei | 970 thousand km² |
| Northern Qi | 920 thousand km² |
| Ghana | 850 thousand km² |
About this map
Territory comes from the Chronas historical dataset used by the Geographic History app. Areas are approximate, computed from about 2,400 province shapes, and describe this map rather than official historical figures - border data for the ancient and medieval world is necessarily a reconstruction.
Every year has a map
Drag a timeline across 2,500 years in the free Geographic History app - every province, ruler and battle, also offline.
