Polity Population List
A viewset for viewing and editing Polity Populations.
GET /api/sc/polity-populations/?format=api&ordering=polity
{ "count": 467, "next": "https://seshatdata.com/api/sc/polity-populations/?format=api&ordering=polity&page=2", "previous": null, "results": [ { "id": 389, "year_from": 900, "year_to": 900, "description": " persons.<br>[23,000,000-33,000,000]: 750-799 CE <i>ET: is this expert disagreement or a range? I've changed curly brackets to square brackets on the assumption it's a range (only one source cited).</i> [720 CE] {23,000,000-33,000,000} §REF§Blankinship, Khalid Yahya, The End of the Jihad State pp.37-8§REF§ The population of the Abbasid Caliphate would have been comparable to the preceding Umayyad Caliphate. The loss of Iberia and the Western half of North Africa in part accounted for by the ensuring population growth of the remaining territory.<br>900 CE - no Egypt, Afghanistan or Central Asia.<br>Western Iran 2m (estimating half of total 4.25m), Iraq 2.5m, The Interior (Saudi Arabia) 2m, Palestine and Jordan 0.5m, Syria 1.5m. §REF§(McEvedy and Jones 1978) McEvedy, Colin. Jones, Richard. 1978. Atlas of World Population History. Penguin Books Ltd.§REF§ Also a bit of Turkey and the Caucasus which is too tough to estimate. Will use 9 million as base of a range.<br>", "note": null, "finalized": true, "created_date": null, "modified_date": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "expert_reviewed": true, "drb_reviewed": null, "name": "polity_population", "polity_population_from": 9000000, "polity_population_to": 11000000, "polity": { "id": 132, "name": "IqAbbs1", "start_year": 750, "end_year": 946, "long_name": "Abbasid Caliphate I", "new_name": "iq_abbasid_cal_1", "polity_tag": "LEGACY", "general_description": "In 750 CE, following a revolt, Abbasid rulers took power from the Umayyad Dynasty under Abu al-'Abbas al-Saffah. To secure his rule, Abu al-'Abbass al-Saffah sought to destroy the male line descending from Fatima and Ali, §REF§ (Zayzafoon 2005, 139) Lamia Ben Youssef Zayzafoon. 2005. <i>The Production of the Muslim Woman: Negotiating Text, History, and Ideology</i>. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. §REF§ and had about 300 members of the Umayyad family killed. §REF§ (Uttridge and Spilling, eds. 2014, 186) S. Uttridge and M. Spilling, eds. 2014. <i>The Encyclopedia of Medieval Warfare</i>. London: Amber Books. §REF§ The last 80 Umayyads were tricked into attending a banquet with their hosts in Damascus and massacred there. §REF§ (Schwartzwald 2015, 24) Jack L. Schwartzwald. 2016. <i>The Collapse and Recovery of Europe, AD 476-1648</i>. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company. §REF§ (One twenty-year-old prince, Abd al-Rahman, famously managed to escape this fate: he dodged assassins all the way to Spain, where he founded an Umayyad Emirate). The First Abbasid Caliphate Period ended in 946 CE when the Daylamite Buyids from northwestern Iran reduced the caliph to a nominal figurehead. Ironically, given the bloody manner in which the dynasty began, the final Abbasid caliph was rolled up in his own carpet and trampled to death by Mongol horsemen in 1258 CE. §REF§ (Kennedy 2001, 164) Hugh N. Kennedy. 2001. <i>The Armies of the Caliphs: Military and Society in the Early Islamic State</i>. London: Routledge. §REF§ The zenith of the Abbasid period is considered to be the reign of Harun al Rashid (763-809 CE), whose rule is described in <i>The Thousand and One Nights</i>. §REF§ (Esposito, ed. 2003, 699) John L. Esposito, ed. 2003. <i>The Oxford Dictionary of Islam</i>. Oxford: Oxford University Press. §REF§ <br><i>Population and political organization</i><br>The capital of the Abbasid Caliphate eventually settled at Baghdad, but in the earlier years the central administration was run from Kufa (750-762 CE), Al-Raqqah (796-809 CE), Merv (810-819 CE), §REF§ (Starr 2013, xxxii) S. Frederick Starr. 2013. <i>Lost Enlightenment: Central Asia's Golden Age from the Arab Conquest to Tamerlane</i>. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. §REF§ and Samarra (836-870 CE). §REF§ (Lapidus 2002, 53-54) Ira M. Lapidus. 2002. <i>A History of Islamic Societies</i>. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. §REF§ §REF§ (Lapidus 2012, 106) Ira M. Lapidus. 2012. <i>Islamic Societies to the Nineteenth Century: A Global History</i>. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. §REF§ The Abbasid caliph, spiritual leader of the Sunni Muslim world and commander-in-chief of its army, left the day-to-day administration to his vizier and heads of the diwans in the complex bureaucracy.<br>The departments were divided into three main areas of responsibility: the chancery (<i>diwan-al-rasa'il</i>); tax collection (<i>diwan al-kharif</i>); and army administration (<i>diwan al-jaysh</i>). §REF§ (Kennedy 2001, 60-66) Hugh N. Kennedy. 2001. <i>The Armies of the Caliphs: Military and Society in the Early Islamic State</i>. London: Routledge. §REF§ Professional officials and soldiers were paid both in cash and in kind. §REF§ (Lapidus 2012, 250) Ira M. Lapidus. 2012. <i>Islamic Societies to the Nineteenth Century: A Global History</i>. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. §REF§ The task of organizing the 'collection and payment of revenues' fell to the Abbasid military. §REF§ (Kennedy 2001, 21) Hugh N. Kennedy. 2001. <i>The Armies of the Caliphs: Military and Society in the Early Islamic State</i>. London: Routledge. §REF§ However, while it was a professional institution, it lacked a rigid hierarchy or a well-defined officer class. §REF§ (Kennedy 2001, 21) Hugh N. Kennedy. 2001. <i>The Armies of the Caliphs: Military and Society in the Early Islamic State</i>. London: Routledge. §REF§ Below the caliph himself, the top military rulers were the provincial governors in Iraq, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Syria, Western Iran and Khuzistan. In Iraq and Egypt, local government was divided into a hierarchy of districts, with subdivisions (<i>kura</i>, <i>tassuj</i> and <i>rustaq</i>) used for assessing taxation, which was passed to the governor. §REF§ (Lapidus 2002, 61) Ira M. Lapidus. 2002. <i>A History of Islamic Societies</i>. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. §REF§ Within the Abbasid Caliphate there were also relatively independent vassals, who were required to pay tribute to the central government at Baghdad. §REF§ (Lapidus 2002, 61) Ira M. Lapidus. 2002. <i>A History of Islamic Societies</i>. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. §REF§ The law code was based largely on <i>sharia</i> law and the <i>ijma' </i>(legal opinions of religious scholars). §REF§ (Zubaida 2005, 74-84) Sami Zubaida. 2005. <i>Law and Power in the Islamic World</i>. London: I. B. Tauris. §REF§ <br>The Abbasid state provided centres of medical care, built ornate public markets, often with drinking fountains, and furnished welfare for the poor. §REF§ (Pickard 2013, 431) John Pickard. 2013. <i>Behind the Myths: The Foundations of Judaism, Christianity and Islam</i>. Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse. §REF§ As paper technology diffused from China, libraries became a common fixture in the cities of the caliphate. In Baghdad, the Khizanat al-Hikma, or 'treasury of wisdom', became a refuge for scholars, providing access to a large collection as well as free lodgings and board. §REF§ (Bennison 2009, 180) Amira K. Bennison. 2009. <i>The Great Caliphs: The Golden Age of the Abbasid Empire</i>. London: I. B. Tauris. §REF§ Each important city included an official called the <i>saheb al-sorta</i>, who was responsible for maintaining public order, and the <i>amir al-suq</i>, in charge of regulating the bazaar. §REF§ (Lambton 2011) Ann K. S. Lambton. 2011. 'Cities iii: Administration and Social Organization', in <i>Encyclopedia Iranica</i> V/6, 607-23; an updated version is available online at <a class=\"external free\" href=\"http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/cities-iii\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/cities-iii</a> (accessed 2 April 2017). §REF§ <br>The territory possessed by the caliphate was lost in dramatic fashion, shrinking from 11.1 million square kilometres in 750 CE, to 4.6 million around 850 CE, to just 1 million square kilometres half a century later as Egypt, Afghanistan and Central Asia were all lost. §REF§ Christopher Chase-Dunn 2001, personal communication. §REF§ Nevertheless, in 900 CE the core region of Abbasid control in the Middle East still had a substantial population of about 10 million people. §REF§ (Blankinship 1994, 37-38) Khalid Y. Blankinship. 1994. <i>The End of the Jihad State: The Reign of Hisham Ibn 'Abd Al-Malik and the Collapse of the Umayyads</i>. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. §REF§ Over 300,000 (or maybe 900,000) of these lived in Baghdad, §REF§ Christopher Chase-Dunn 2001, personal communication. §REF§ which by this date had probably outgrown Byzantine Constantinople.", "shapefile_name": null, "private_comment": null, "created_date": null, "modified_date": null, "home_nga": { "id": 8, "name": "Southern Mesopotamia", "subregion": "Levant-Mesopotamia", "longitude": "44.420000000000", "latitude": "32.470000000000", "capital_city": "Babylon (Hillah)", "nga_code": "IQ", "fao_country": "Iraq", "world_region": "Southwest Asia" }, "home_seshat_region": { "id": 62, "name": "Mesopotamia", "subregions_list": "Iraq, Kuwait", "mac_region": { "id": 11, "name": "Southwest Asia" } }, "private_comment_n": { "id": 1, "text": "NO_PRIVATE_COMMENTS" } }, "comment": null, "private_comment": { "id": 1, "text": "NO_PRIVATE_COMMENTS" }, "citations": [], "curator": [] }, { "id": 388, "year_from": 800, "year_to": 800, "description": " persons.<br>[23,000,000-33,000,000]: 750-799 CE <i>ET: is this expert disagreement or a range? I've changed curly brackets to square brackets on the assumption it's a range (only one source cited).</i> [720 CE] {23,000,000-33,000,000} §REF§Blankinship, Khalid Yahya, The End of the Jihad State pp.37-8§REF§ The population of the Abbasid Caliphate would have been comparable to the preceding Umayyad Caliphate. The loss of Iberia and the Western half of North Africa in part accounted for by the ensuring population growth of the remaining territory.<br>900 CE - no Egypt, Afghanistan or Central Asia.<br>Western Iran 2m (estimating half of total 4.25m), Iraq 2.5m, The Interior (Saudi Arabia) 2m, Palestine and Jordan 0.5m, Syria 1.5m. §REF§(McEvedy and Jones 1978) McEvedy, Colin. Jones, Richard. 1978. Atlas of World Population History. Penguin Books Ltd.§REF§ Also a bit of Turkey and the Caucasus which is too tough to estimate. Will use 9 million as base of a range.<br>", "note": null, "finalized": true, "created_date": null, "modified_date": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "expert_reviewed": true, "drb_reviewed": null, "name": "polity_population", "polity_population_from": 23000000, "polity_population_to": 33000000, "polity": { "id": 132, "name": "IqAbbs1", "start_year": 750, "end_year": 946, "long_name": "Abbasid Caliphate I", "new_name": "iq_abbasid_cal_1", "polity_tag": "LEGACY", "general_description": "In 750 CE, following a revolt, Abbasid rulers took power from the Umayyad Dynasty under Abu al-'Abbas al-Saffah. To secure his rule, Abu al-'Abbass al-Saffah sought to destroy the male line descending from Fatima and Ali, §REF§ (Zayzafoon 2005, 139) Lamia Ben Youssef Zayzafoon. 2005. <i>The Production of the Muslim Woman: Negotiating Text, History, and Ideology</i>. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. §REF§ and had about 300 members of the Umayyad family killed. §REF§ (Uttridge and Spilling, eds. 2014, 186) S. Uttridge and M. Spilling, eds. 2014. <i>The Encyclopedia of Medieval Warfare</i>. London: Amber Books. §REF§ The last 80 Umayyads were tricked into attending a banquet with their hosts in Damascus and massacred there. §REF§ (Schwartzwald 2015, 24) Jack L. Schwartzwald. 2016. <i>The Collapse and Recovery of Europe, AD 476-1648</i>. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company. §REF§ (One twenty-year-old prince, Abd al-Rahman, famously managed to escape this fate: he dodged assassins all the way to Spain, where he founded an Umayyad Emirate). The First Abbasid Caliphate Period ended in 946 CE when the Daylamite Buyids from northwestern Iran reduced the caliph to a nominal figurehead. Ironically, given the bloody manner in which the dynasty began, the final Abbasid caliph was rolled up in his own carpet and trampled to death by Mongol horsemen in 1258 CE. §REF§ (Kennedy 2001, 164) Hugh N. Kennedy. 2001. <i>The Armies of the Caliphs: Military and Society in the Early Islamic State</i>. London: Routledge. §REF§ The zenith of the Abbasid period is considered to be the reign of Harun al Rashid (763-809 CE), whose rule is described in <i>The Thousand and One Nights</i>. §REF§ (Esposito, ed. 2003, 699) John L. Esposito, ed. 2003. <i>The Oxford Dictionary of Islam</i>. Oxford: Oxford University Press. §REF§ <br><i>Population and political organization</i><br>The capital of the Abbasid Caliphate eventually settled at Baghdad, but in the earlier years the central administration was run from Kufa (750-762 CE), Al-Raqqah (796-809 CE), Merv (810-819 CE), §REF§ (Starr 2013, xxxii) S. Frederick Starr. 2013. <i>Lost Enlightenment: Central Asia's Golden Age from the Arab Conquest to Tamerlane</i>. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. §REF§ and Samarra (836-870 CE). §REF§ (Lapidus 2002, 53-54) Ira M. Lapidus. 2002. <i>A History of Islamic Societies</i>. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. §REF§ §REF§ (Lapidus 2012, 106) Ira M. Lapidus. 2012. <i>Islamic Societies to the Nineteenth Century: A Global History</i>. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. §REF§ The Abbasid caliph, spiritual leader of the Sunni Muslim world and commander-in-chief of its army, left the day-to-day administration to his vizier and heads of the diwans in the complex bureaucracy.<br>The departments were divided into three main areas of responsibility: the chancery (<i>diwan-al-rasa'il</i>); tax collection (<i>diwan al-kharif</i>); and army administration (<i>diwan al-jaysh</i>). §REF§ (Kennedy 2001, 60-66) Hugh N. Kennedy. 2001. <i>The Armies of the Caliphs: Military and Society in the Early Islamic State</i>. London: Routledge. §REF§ Professional officials and soldiers were paid both in cash and in kind. §REF§ (Lapidus 2012, 250) Ira M. Lapidus. 2012. <i>Islamic Societies to the Nineteenth Century: A Global History</i>. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. §REF§ The task of organizing the 'collection and payment of revenues' fell to the Abbasid military. §REF§ (Kennedy 2001, 21) Hugh N. Kennedy. 2001. <i>The Armies of the Caliphs: Military and Society in the Early Islamic State</i>. London: Routledge. §REF§ However, while it was a professional institution, it lacked a rigid hierarchy or a well-defined officer class. §REF§ (Kennedy 2001, 21) Hugh N. Kennedy. 2001. <i>The Armies of the Caliphs: Military and Society in the Early Islamic State</i>. London: Routledge. §REF§ Below the caliph himself, the top military rulers were the provincial governors in Iraq, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Syria, Western Iran and Khuzistan. In Iraq and Egypt, local government was divided into a hierarchy of districts, with subdivisions (<i>kura</i>, <i>tassuj</i> and <i>rustaq</i>) used for assessing taxation, which was passed to the governor. §REF§ (Lapidus 2002, 61) Ira M. Lapidus. 2002. <i>A History of Islamic Societies</i>. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. §REF§ Within the Abbasid Caliphate there were also relatively independent vassals, who were required to pay tribute to the central government at Baghdad. §REF§ (Lapidus 2002, 61) Ira M. Lapidus. 2002. <i>A History of Islamic Societies</i>. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. §REF§ The law code was based largely on <i>sharia</i> law and the <i>ijma' </i>(legal opinions of religious scholars). §REF§ (Zubaida 2005, 74-84) Sami Zubaida. 2005. <i>Law and Power in the Islamic World</i>. London: I. B. Tauris. §REF§ <br>The Abbasid state provided centres of medical care, built ornate public markets, often with drinking fountains, and furnished welfare for the poor. §REF§ (Pickard 2013, 431) John Pickard. 2013. <i>Behind the Myths: The Foundations of Judaism, Christianity and Islam</i>. Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse. §REF§ As paper technology diffused from China, libraries became a common fixture in the cities of the caliphate. In Baghdad, the Khizanat al-Hikma, or 'treasury of wisdom', became a refuge for scholars, providing access to a large collection as well as free lodgings and board. §REF§ (Bennison 2009, 180) Amira K. Bennison. 2009. <i>The Great Caliphs: The Golden Age of the Abbasid Empire</i>. London: I. B. Tauris. §REF§ Each important city included an official called the <i>saheb al-sorta</i>, who was responsible for maintaining public order, and the <i>amir al-suq</i>, in charge of regulating the bazaar. §REF§ (Lambton 2011) Ann K. S. Lambton. 2011. 'Cities iii: Administration and Social Organization', in <i>Encyclopedia Iranica</i> V/6, 607-23; an updated version is available online at <a class=\"external free\" href=\"http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/cities-iii\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/cities-iii</a> (accessed 2 April 2017). §REF§ <br>The territory possessed by the caliphate was lost in dramatic fashion, shrinking from 11.1 million square kilometres in 750 CE, to 4.6 million around 850 CE, to just 1 million square kilometres half a century later as Egypt, Afghanistan and Central Asia were all lost. §REF§ Christopher Chase-Dunn 2001, personal communication. §REF§ Nevertheless, in 900 CE the core region of Abbasid control in the Middle East still had a substantial population of about 10 million people. §REF§ (Blankinship 1994, 37-38) Khalid Y. Blankinship. 1994. <i>The End of the Jihad State: The Reign of Hisham Ibn 'Abd Al-Malik and the Collapse of the Umayyads</i>. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. §REF§ Over 300,000 (or maybe 900,000) of these lived in Baghdad, §REF§ Christopher Chase-Dunn 2001, personal communication. §REF§ which by this date had probably outgrown Byzantine Constantinople.", "shapefile_name": null, "private_comment": null, "created_date": null, "modified_date": null, "home_nga": { "id": 8, "name": "Southern Mesopotamia", "subregion": "Levant-Mesopotamia", "longitude": "44.420000000000", "latitude": "32.470000000000", "capital_city": "Babylon (Hillah)", "nga_code": "IQ", "fao_country": "Iraq", "world_region": "Southwest Asia" }, "home_seshat_region": { "id": 62, "name": "Mesopotamia", "subregions_list": "Iraq, Kuwait", "mac_region": { "id": 11, "name": "Southwest Asia" } }, "private_comment_n": { "id": 1, "text": "NO_PRIVATE_COMMENTS" } }, "comment": null, "private_comment": { "id": 1, "text": "NO_PRIVATE_COMMENTS" }, "citations": [], "curator": [] }, { "id": 390, "year_from": 1200, "year_to": 1200, "description": " People.<br>In 1200 CE the Abbasids held Iraq and part of western Iran south of the Caspian.<br>McEvedy and Jones§REF§(McEvedy and Jones 1978, 151-153) McEvedy, Colin. Jones, Richard. 1978. Atlas of World Population History. Penguin Books Ltd.§REF§<br>Iraq 1.5m in 1200 CE. Northernmost part of Iraq. Not controlled by Abbasids. However, likely most populated regions were under their control so will estimate 1.4m.<br>Iran 5m in 1200 CE. However, significant population centers e.g. Shiraz and Gulf coast region, Khurasan not controlled by Abbasids. Will estimate half of total for region: 2.5m", "note": null, "finalized": true, "created_date": null, "modified_date": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "expert_reviewed": true, "drb_reviewed": null, "name": "polity_population", "polity_population_from": 3900000, "polity_population_to": 3900000, "polity": { "id": 484, "name": "IqAbbs2", "start_year": 1191, "end_year": 1258, "long_name": "Abbasid Caliphate II", "new_name": "iq_abbasid_cal_2", "polity_tag": "LEGACY", "general_description": "The Second Abbasid Period (1191-1258 CE) was mostly remarkable for the city of Baghdad which is usually estimated to have had about 1 million inhabitants at the time of the Mongol sack in 1258 CE.<br>With the Mongol sack of Baghdad in 1258 CE \"the culture, science and learning for which Baghdad had been known for centuries simply disappeared in a period of a week.\" §REF§ (DeVries 2014, 209) Kelly DeVries in Morton, N. John, S. eds. 2014. Crusading and Warfare in the Middle Ages: Realities and Representations. Essays in Honour of John France. Ashgate Publishing Ltd. §REF§ The city was defended by a garrison of just 10,000 soldiers. §REF§ (DeVries 2014, 207) Kelly DeVries in Morton, N. John, S. eds. 2014. Crusading and Warfare in the Middle Ages: Realities and Representations. Essays in Honour of John France. Ashgate Publishing Ltd. §REF§ <br>In 1200 CE the Abbasids held Iraq and part of western Iran south of the Caspian, the territories holding perhaps 3.9 million inhabitants. The governance system was still Perso-Islamic with a vizier chief bureaucrat who oversaw government departments. §REF§ (Shaw 1976, 5) Stanford J Shaw. 1976. History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey: Volume 1, Empire of the Gazis: The Rise and Decline of the Ottoman Empire 1280-1808. Cambridge University Press. §REF§ <br>The reign of al-Nasir (1180-1225 CE) was notable for being absolutely repressive \"the caliph's spies were so efficient and the caliph himself so ruthless that a man hardly dared to speak to his own wife in the privacy of his home.\" §REF§ (Bray 2015, xxi) Shawkat M Toorawa ed. 2015. Consorts of the Caliphs: Women and the Court of Baghdad. NYU Press. §REF§ ", "shapefile_name": null, "private_comment": null, "created_date": null, "modified_date": null, "home_nga": { "id": 8, "name": "Southern Mesopotamia", "subregion": "Levant-Mesopotamia", "longitude": "44.420000000000", "latitude": "32.470000000000", "capital_city": "Babylon (Hillah)", "nga_code": "IQ", "fao_country": "Iraq", "world_region": "Southwest Asia" }, "home_seshat_region": { "id": 62, "name": "Mesopotamia", "subregions_list": "Iraq, Kuwait", "mac_region": { "id": 11, "name": "Southwest Asia" } }, "private_comment_n": { "id": 1, "text": "NO_PRIVATE_COMMENTS" } }, "comment": null, "private_comment": { "id": 1, "text": "NO_PRIVATE_COMMENTS" }, "citations": [], "curator": [] }, { "id": 400, "year_from": -500, "year_to": -500, "description": "20-26 million at peak 6.2m km2. §REF§(Broodbank 2015, 583) Broodbank, Cyprian. 2015. The Making of the Middle Sea. Thames & Hudson. London.§REF§<br>15.5 million. 4 million \"in Persia proper.\" §REF§(Stearns 2001, 40)§REF§<br>Table of modern estimates of the population of the Achaemenid Empire from Wiesehofer (2009).<br>Low EstimatesEgypt 3.5mNear East (without Arabia) 12.0mCentral Asia and India 1.5mTotal 17.0m<br>High EstimatesTotal 30-35m§REF§(Wiesehofer 2009, 77)§REF§", "note": null, "finalized": true, "created_date": null, "modified_date": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "expert_reviewed": true, "drb_reviewed": null, "name": "polity_population", "polity_population_from": 20000000, "polity_population_to": 26000000, "polity": { "id": 107, "name": "IrAchae", "start_year": -550, "end_year": -331, "long_name": "Achaemenid Empire", "new_name": "ir_achaemenid_emp", "polity_tag": "LEGACY", "general_description": "The Achaemenid Empire was established by Cyrus II 'the Great', who inherited the small kingdom of Persia (named after the capital city, Persis) in southwest Iran, a vassal territory of the larger Median Empire to the Northwest. From 553 to 550 BCE, Cyrus led his fellow Persians against Median hegemony (even though the Medes were ruled by his own relatives), establishing the Persians as the dominant group in Iran. His kingdom became known as the Achaemenid Empire after the legendary first King of Persia, Achaemenes, claimed to be an ancestor of the Great Cyrus himself (Achaemenid essentially translates to 'children of Achaemenes'). §REF§ (Briant [1996] 2002) Pierre Briant. [1996] 2002. <i>From Cyrus to Alexander: A History of the Persian Empire</i>, translated by Peter T. Daniels. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. §REF§ <br>Capitalizing on these early victories, Cyrus II the Great continued his military domination, conquering the wealthy Lydian Kingdom in modern-day Turkey along with most of Asia Minor and the Neo-Babylonian Kingdom in Mesopotamia, as well as consolidating Persia's hold over much of central Asia as far as modern Pakistan. His son and heir, Cambyses II, continued this tradition, expanding Achaemenid rule into the large and wealthy kingdom of Egypt. After Cambyses II's death in 522 BCE, a noble Persian named Darius came to power after overthrowing an alleged usurper to the throne (Gautama, supposedly posing as Cyrus II's son Bardiya, more commonly known by his Greek name Smerdis). §REF§ (Shayegan 2006) M. Rahim Shayegan. 2006. 'Bardiya and Gaumata: An Achaemenid Enigma Reconsidered'. <i>Bulletin of the Asia Institute</i> (n.s.) 20: 65-76. §REF§ Darius I, who also took the title of 'the Great', was a powerful ruler who inaugurated several military, administrative, and economic reforms, §REF§ (Cook 1983) J. M. Cook. 1983. <i>The Persian Empire</i>. London: J. M. Dent and Sons. §REF§ though is most well known for leading the Persian army to defeat at the hands of a coalition of small Greek city-states during the famous Persian Wars of the early 5th century BCE. Despite the fact that Darius' son and heir Xerxes I (the Great) also failed to conquer the Greek Aegean and lost a decisive battle to the same outnumbered coalition of Greeks, the Achaemenid Empire remained intact. §REF§ (de Souza 2003) Philip de Souza. 2003. <i>The Greek and Persian Wars, 499-386 BC</i>. Oxford: Osprey Publishing. §REF§ <br>In 330 BCE, Darius III became the twelfth and final emperor in the Achaemenid line when he succumbed to the conquests of Alexander the Great and his invading Macedonian army (twelfth not including the alleged usurper Bardiya/Smerdis nor the short-lived Artaxerxes V, who declared himself emperor for a brief moment after Darius III was killed as Alexander was completing his conquest). §REF§ (Kuhrt 2001, 94) Amelie Kuhrt. 2001. 'The Achaemenid Persian Empire (c. 550 - c. 330 BCE): Continuities, Adaptations, Transformations', in <i>Empires: Perspectives from Archaeology and History</i>, edited by Susan Alcock, Terence D'Altroy, Kathleen D. Morrison and Carla M. Sinopoli, 93-123. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. §REF§ Alexander became the ruler of all the territory formerly held by the Persians, incorporating it into the massive, though short-lived, Macedonian Empire and bringing an end to the great Persian Achaemenid Empire.<br><i>Population and political organization</i><br>The Achaemenid Empire was one of the largest empires in the pre-modern world, stretching nearly 6 million square kilometres across the Near East, Central Asia, the Indus Valley, Middle East, and into Egypt at its greatest extent. §REF§ (Broodbank 2015, 583) Cyprian Broodbank. 2015. <i>The Making of the Middle Sea</i>. London: Thames & Hudson. §REF§ It was a massive, multi-ethnic society made up of Medes, Persians, Lydians, Greeks, Egyptians, Babylonians, Bactrians, Sogdians, and numerous other cultural-ethnic groups; indeed, Old Persian, Elamite, Babylonian, Aramaic, hieroglyphic Egyptian, and Greek were all used in royal and provincial communication. §REF§ (Shahbazi 2012, 135) A. Shapour Shahbazi. 2012. 'The Achaemenid Persian Empire (550-330 BCE)', in <i>The Oxford Handbook of Iranian History</i>, edited by Touraj Daryaee, 120-41. Oxford: Oxford University Press. §REF§ Between the Great rulers Cyrus II, Cambyses II, and Darius I, the Persians had stitched together an empire out of the centres of the oldest civilizations from Anatolia to Egypt, Mesopotamia and the Indus valley. Persepolis and the grand Pasargadae were large ceremonial and ritual centres in the heartland of Persia, while Susa in western Iran was the major administrative capital. At its peak under Darius I, the empire covered a huge swathe of diverse territory from the eastern Mediterranean all the way to the Indus Valley, incorporating navigable seas and rivers, protected ports and fertile agricultural land as well as rough mountainous passes. This territory held a population of between 17 and 35 million people. §REF§ (Wiesehöfer 2009) Josef Wiesehöfer. 2009. 'The Achaemenid Empire', in <i>The Dynamics of Ancient Empires: State Power from Assyria to Byzantium</i>, edited by Ian Morris and Walter Scheidel, 66-98. Oxford: Oxford University Press. §REF§ ", "shapefile_name": null, "private_comment": null, "created_date": null, "modified_date": null, "home_nga": { "id": 9, "name": "Susiana", "subregion": "Levant-Mesopotamia", "longitude": "48.235564000000", "latitude": "32.382851000000", "capital_city": "Susa (Shush)", "nga_code": "IR", "fao_country": "Iran", "world_region": "Southwest Asia" }, "home_seshat_region": { "id": 45, "name": "Iran", "subregions_list": "Iran", "mac_region": { "id": 11, "name": "Southwest Asia" } }, "private_comment_n": { "id": 1, "text": "NO_PRIVATE_COMMENTS" } }, "comment": null, "private_comment": { "id": 1, "text": "NO_PRIVATE_COMMENTS" }, "citations": [], "curator": [] }, { "id": 401, "year_from": -400, "year_to": -400, "description": "20-26 million at peak 6.2m km2. §REF§(Broodbank 2015, 583) Broodbank, Cyprian. 2015. The Making of the Middle Sea. Thames & Hudson. London.§REF§<br>15.5 million. 4 million \"in Persia proper.\" §REF§(Stearns 2001, 40)§REF§<br>Table of modern estimates of the population of the Achaemenid Empire from Wiesehofer (2009).<br>Low EstimatesEgypt 3.5mNear East (without Arabia) 12.0mCentral Asia and India 1.5mTotal 17.0m<br>High EstimatesTotal 30-35m§REF§(Wiesehofer 2009, 77)§REF§", "note": null, "finalized": true, "created_date": null, "modified_date": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "expert_reviewed": true, "drb_reviewed": null, "name": "polity_population", "polity_population_from": 17000000, "polity_population_to": 35000000, "polity": { "id": 107, "name": "IrAchae", "start_year": -550, "end_year": -331, "long_name": "Achaemenid Empire", "new_name": "ir_achaemenid_emp", "polity_tag": "LEGACY", "general_description": "The Achaemenid Empire was established by Cyrus II 'the Great', who inherited the small kingdom of Persia (named after the capital city, Persis) in southwest Iran, a vassal territory of the larger Median Empire to the Northwest. From 553 to 550 BCE, Cyrus led his fellow Persians against Median hegemony (even though the Medes were ruled by his own relatives), establishing the Persians as the dominant group in Iran. His kingdom became known as the Achaemenid Empire after the legendary first King of Persia, Achaemenes, claimed to be an ancestor of the Great Cyrus himself (Achaemenid essentially translates to 'children of Achaemenes'). §REF§ (Briant [1996] 2002) Pierre Briant. [1996] 2002. <i>From Cyrus to Alexander: A History of the Persian Empire</i>, translated by Peter T. Daniels. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. §REF§ <br>Capitalizing on these early victories, Cyrus II the Great continued his military domination, conquering the wealthy Lydian Kingdom in modern-day Turkey along with most of Asia Minor and the Neo-Babylonian Kingdom in Mesopotamia, as well as consolidating Persia's hold over much of central Asia as far as modern Pakistan. His son and heir, Cambyses II, continued this tradition, expanding Achaemenid rule into the large and wealthy kingdom of Egypt. After Cambyses II's death in 522 BCE, a noble Persian named Darius came to power after overthrowing an alleged usurper to the throne (Gautama, supposedly posing as Cyrus II's son Bardiya, more commonly known by his Greek name Smerdis). §REF§ (Shayegan 2006) M. Rahim Shayegan. 2006. 'Bardiya and Gaumata: An Achaemenid Enigma Reconsidered'. <i>Bulletin of the Asia Institute</i> (n.s.) 20: 65-76. §REF§ Darius I, who also took the title of 'the Great', was a powerful ruler who inaugurated several military, administrative, and economic reforms, §REF§ (Cook 1983) J. M. Cook. 1983. <i>The Persian Empire</i>. London: J. M. Dent and Sons. §REF§ though is most well known for leading the Persian army to defeat at the hands of a coalition of small Greek city-states during the famous Persian Wars of the early 5th century BCE. Despite the fact that Darius' son and heir Xerxes I (the Great) also failed to conquer the Greek Aegean and lost a decisive battle to the same outnumbered coalition of Greeks, the Achaemenid Empire remained intact. §REF§ (de Souza 2003) Philip de Souza. 2003. <i>The Greek and Persian Wars, 499-386 BC</i>. Oxford: Osprey Publishing. §REF§ <br>In 330 BCE, Darius III became the twelfth and final emperor in the Achaemenid line when he succumbed to the conquests of Alexander the Great and his invading Macedonian army (twelfth not including the alleged usurper Bardiya/Smerdis nor the short-lived Artaxerxes V, who declared himself emperor for a brief moment after Darius III was killed as Alexander was completing his conquest). §REF§ (Kuhrt 2001, 94) Amelie Kuhrt. 2001. 'The Achaemenid Persian Empire (c. 550 - c. 330 BCE): Continuities, Adaptations, Transformations', in <i>Empires: Perspectives from Archaeology and History</i>, edited by Susan Alcock, Terence D'Altroy, Kathleen D. Morrison and Carla M. Sinopoli, 93-123. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. §REF§ Alexander became the ruler of all the territory formerly held by the Persians, incorporating it into the massive, though short-lived, Macedonian Empire and bringing an end to the great Persian Achaemenid Empire.<br><i>Population and political organization</i><br>The Achaemenid Empire was one of the largest empires in the pre-modern world, stretching nearly 6 million square kilometres across the Near East, Central Asia, the Indus Valley, Middle East, and into Egypt at its greatest extent. §REF§ (Broodbank 2015, 583) Cyprian Broodbank. 2015. <i>The Making of the Middle Sea</i>. London: Thames & Hudson. §REF§ It was a massive, multi-ethnic society made up of Medes, Persians, Lydians, Greeks, Egyptians, Babylonians, Bactrians, Sogdians, and numerous other cultural-ethnic groups; indeed, Old Persian, Elamite, Babylonian, Aramaic, hieroglyphic Egyptian, and Greek were all used in royal and provincial communication. §REF§ (Shahbazi 2012, 135) A. Shapour Shahbazi. 2012. 'The Achaemenid Persian Empire (550-330 BCE)', in <i>The Oxford Handbook of Iranian History</i>, edited by Touraj Daryaee, 120-41. Oxford: Oxford University Press. §REF§ Between the Great rulers Cyrus II, Cambyses II, and Darius I, the Persians had stitched together an empire out of the centres of the oldest civilizations from Anatolia to Egypt, Mesopotamia and the Indus valley. Persepolis and the grand Pasargadae were large ceremonial and ritual centres in the heartland of Persia, while Susa in western Iran was the major administrative capital. At its peak under Darius I, the empire covered a huge swathe of diverse territory from the eastern Mediterranean all the way to the Indus Valley, incorporating navigable seas and rivers, protected ports and fertile agricultural land as well as rough mountainous passes. This territory held a population of between 17 and 35 million people. §REF§ (Wiesehöfer 2009) Josef Wiesehöfer. 2009. 'The Achaemenid Empire', in <i>The Dynamics of Ancient Empires: State Power from Assyria to Byzantium</i>, edited by Ian Morris and Walter Scheidel, 66-98. Oxford: Oxford University Press. §REF§ ", "shapefile_name": null, "private_comment": null, "created_date": null, "modified_date": null, "home_nga": { "id": 9, "name": "Susiana", "subregion": "Levant-Mesopotamia", "longitude": "48.235564000000", "latitude": "32.382851000000", "capital_city": "Susa (Shush)", "nga_code": "IR", "fao_country": "Iran", "world_region": "Southwest Asia" }, "home_seshat_region": { "id": 45, "name": "Iran", "subregions_list": "Iran", "mac_region": { "id": 11, "name": "Southwest Asia" } }, "private_comment_n": { "id": 1, "text": "NO_PRIVATE_COMMENTS" } }, "comment": null, "private_comment": { "id": 1, "text": "NO_PRIVATE_COMMENTS" }, "citations": [], "curator": [] }, { "id": 677, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "description": "Seems likely that this mention of 30,000 people is referring to the city of Allada, rather than the entire polity, but it’s not clear: “By the mid-15th century, the population of Allada had reached approximately 30,000 people. It seems likely that the collection of small settlements up to this time organized themselves politically along decentralized lines, meaning that they ruled by consensus rather than granting sovereignty to a leader or king. Demographic growth, however, likely necessitated a transition to political centralization. Legends suggest that three brothers who had descended from people in what is now the city of Allada split the region into three parts and administered rule as kings. The first, Kokpon, remained in the capital city and became the ruler of the Allada kingdom. His brothers Do-Aklin and Te-Agdanlin allegedly left the city to establish their own kingdoms of Dahomey and Little Ardra, respectively, in what is now the city of Portno Novo.” §REF§Aderinto, Saheed. African Kingdoms: An Encyclopedia of Empires and Civilizations. ABC-CLIO, 2017: 8. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/EB5TWDG7/collection§REF§ “By the mid-16th century, however, the Portuguese were actively trading at Allada's capital, Grand Ardra. Grand Ardra was a city of considerable size, home to approximately 30,000 people; Allada as a whole had a population upwards of 200,000. Dutch physician Olfert Dapper wrote in his Description of Africa in 1668 of the presence of \"towns and villages in great number\" in Grand Ardra's countryside. Over the course of the 17th century, Allada emerged as the paramount kingdom in the region, exacting regular tribute from its neighbors and legitimizing these tributary relationships through various ritual obligations.” §REF§Monroe, J. Cameron. “Urbanism on West Africa’s Slave Coast: Archaeology Sheds New Light on Cities in the Era of the Atlantic Slave Trade.” American Scientist, vol. 99, no. 5, 2011, pp. 400–09: 402. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/E5WA63Z2/collection§REF§", "note": null, "finalized": false, "created_date": null, "modified_date": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "expert_reviewed": false, "drb_reviewed": null, "name": "Polity_population", "polity_population_from": 200000, "polity_population_to": 200000, "polity": { "id": 659, "name": "ni_allada_k", "start_year": 1100, "end_year": 1724, "long_name": "Allada", "new_name": "ni_allada_k", "polity_tag": "POL_AFR_WEST", "general_description": null, "shapefile_name": null, "private_comment": null, "created_date": null, "modified_date": null, "home_nga": null, "home_seshat_region": { "id": 7, "name": "West Africa", "subregions_list": "From Senegal to Gabon (Tropical)", "mac_region": { "id": 2, "name": "Africa" } }, "private_comment_n": { "id": 1, "text": "NO_PRIVATE_COMMENTS" } }, "comment": null, "private_comment": { "id": 1, "text": "NO_PRIVATE_COMMENTS" }, "citations": [], "curator": [] }, { "id": 578, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "description": " People.<br>1300 BCE \"100,000 scattered through the oases and in the areas where neolithic agriculture was possible.\"§REF§(McEvedy and Jones 1978) McEvedy, Colin. Jones, Richard. 1978. Atlas of World Population History. Penguin Books Ltd.§REF§", "note": null, "finalized": true, "created_date": null, "modified_date": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "expert_reviewed": true, "drb_reviewed": null, "name": "polity_population", "polity_population_from": 50000, "polity_population_to": 100000, "polity": { "id": 465, "name": "UzKhw01", "start_year": -1000, "end_year": -521, "long_name": "Ancient Khwarazm", "new_name": "uz_khwarasm_1", "polity_tag": "LEGACY", "general_description": "\"The most interesting Early Iron Age culture of ancient Khorezm was that of Amirabad in the tenth to eighth centuries b.c.2 Dozens more settlements were found in the lower reaches of the former channels of Akcha Darya, the ancient delta of the Amu Darya. The most interesting was Yakka-Parsan II, alongside which were found ancient fields, and the remnants of an Amirabad-period irrigation system (Fig. 1). The old channel passed near by, its banks being reinforced with dykes.Two rows of semi-dugout houses - some twenty in all - were found in the Yakka-Parsan II settlement. Large numbers of storage pits were found around the houses, and the entire site is rich in animal bones, pottery, grain-querns and so on. The houses stood between two canals that merged to the south, all the doors giving on to the canals. Rectangular in ground-plan, the houses were 90 to 110 m2 in area and had two or three rooms. The interiors contained many storage pits and post-holes, each with a long fireplace in the centre. The major finds were pottery, hand-made with a darkish brown, red or greyish slip, the shoulders of the bowls being decorated with small crosses, lattice-work or 'fir-trees'. Accord ing to S. P. Tolstov, the Amirabad culture was genetically akin to the Kaundy complex and dates from the ninth to eighth centuries b.c. It should be observed that the pottery shows more obvious traces of Karasuk influence, the commonest shapes being similar to the ceramics ofthe latter; this entitles us to date its origins to a somewhat earlier period - the tenth century b.c. Other finds include bronze artefacts - a needle with an eye, a sickle with a shaped handle, a bronze arrow¬ head with a shaft - and stone moulds for casting shaft-hole arrowheads and sickles. A bronze sickle, large numbers of grain-querns and the advanced irrigation network and fields together show that agriculture was widely practised, while the bone finds further indicate that the population was engaged in stock- breeding.3\" §REF§ (Askarov 1992, 441-443) §REF§ <br>\"The Achaemenids found in Sogdiana an urban civilization. Along two divergent canals fed by the Zarafshan, the proto-Dargom and the Bulungur, two gigantic sites, Afrasiab-Samarkand and Kök Tepe - each covering more than two hundred hectares - were occupied from the 8th or 7th century before our era.2 The valley of the Zarafshan had already known an earlier urban phase at the site of Sarazm, a small distance upstream from Samarkand, but this phase had ended a millenium before.3 Kök Tepe declined rapidly, but Samarkand became for two millenia the greatest city of Sogdiana, and, with Merv and Bactra, one of the very great cities of western Central Asia. The Achaemenids brought writing to Sogdiana, and the written language long remained the Aramaic of the Achaemenid Empire.\" §REF§ (De la Vaissière 2005, 17) §REF§ <br>\"The 6th and 5th cenuries BC are represented by only a few monuments, and the nature of Persian political and economic control over Chorasmia is,, therefore, still in question. Similarly unresolved is the question of the introduction of large-scale irrigation to the area - whether this was an indigenous development, gradually evolving as the cattle-breeding nomadic tribes became sedentised, or whether it was a new technology introduced by an hydraulic imperial state, the Achaemenid Empire under Darius I, in about 525 BC. Up until last year only three large-scale settlements of this period were properly documented - i.e. Kiuzeli-g'ir, Kakal'i-g'ir, and Chirik-rabat.\" §REF§ (Helms 1998, 87-88) §REF§ <br>Reference to check: A. I. Isakov, “Sarazm: An Agricultural Center of Ancient Sogdiana,” Bulletin of the Asia Institute 8, 1996, pp. 1-13.<br>'The process of urbanization began earlier and on a greater scale in Chorasmia and on the left bank of the middle Syr Darya, localities which were more advanced in economic and cultural terms. They were geographically closer to the ancient urban centres of south-western and southern Central Asia and were open to their influence through Margiana and Sogdiana. They were later incorporated as provinces of the Achaemenid Empire and came into its socio-economic orbit for a time. In the southern Aral region, the sedentary farmers and pastoralists of the Chorasmian oasis represent the Late Bronze Age Amirabad cultural pattern seen in the Dzhanbas and Yakka-Parsan settlements. At that time they had master craftsmen (the 'house of the caster') with settled houses and social gradations. [...] The oldest Chorasmian city, and the key monument of this period, was Kyuzeli-gir, dating from the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. It lay on the left bank of the Amu Darya in the Sarîkamîsh region of the delta. Standing on a natural elevation, roughly triangular in ground-plan, it occupied an area of 25 ha. The city was surrounded by a powerful defensive wall with oval bastions. Its residential district was densely packed with buildings of rectangular unbaked brick and pakhsa. It had an advanced pottery industry, based on the wheel, and art objects of a type common in Saka burial complexes of the period have been found. Another early city of the same date, Kalalî-gîr, was surrounded by triple walls with bastions and had four gates with entrance barbicans and a hill-top palace, but it was never completed.' §REF§ (Negmatov 1994, 446) §REF§ <br>Throughout the periods Helms and Yagodin focus on in their 1997 article (from the end of the Bronze Age to the incursions of the Hephthalites, Turks and early 'Afrighids' in the mid-1st millennium CE), 'the region saw the infiltration of many nomadic groups (initially cattle-breeders, later also sheep-goat and camel) some of which formed settled communities, even states and empires. These are the Scythians (a generic term), Massagetae, Sacae, Sav[u]romats, Yueh-chih (later \"Kushans\"), Sarmatians, and others of the Greek, Persian, and Chinese sources. Identifying evidence of their presence has never been easy: the bulk of data has had to come from burials (kurgans) whose contents have been loosely arranged in a relative chronology (see Itina 1979). Recent work by Yagodin has provided more precise information regarding tribal groupings in and about ancient Chorasmia, including the Ustiurt Plateau, as early as the \"Archaic\" period (Yagodin 1990) and, more generally, the major trade routes (i.e., the Silk Road) through northern Central Asia (Yagodin 1994)'. §REF§ (Helms and Yagodin 1997, 44) Svend Helms and Vadim N. Yagodin. 1997. 'Excavations at Kazakl'i-Yatkan in the Tash-Ki'rman Oasis of Ancient Chorasmia: A Preliminary Report'. <i>Iran</i> 35: 45-47. §REF§ ", "shapefile_name": null, "private_comment": null, "created_date": null, "modified_date": null, "home_nga": { "id": 23, "name": "Sogdiana", "subregion": "Turkestan", "longitude": "66.938170000000", "latitude": "39.631284000000", "capital_city": "Samarkand", "nga_code": "UZ", "fao_country": "Uzbekistan", "world_region": "Central Eurasia" }, "home_seshat_region": { "id": 13, "name": "Turkestan", "subregions_list": "Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakstan, Xinjiang", "mac_region": { "id": 3, "name": "Central and Northern Eurasia" } }, "private_comment_n": { "id": 1, "text": "NO_PRIVATE_COMMENTS" } }, "comment": null, "private_comment": { "id": 1, "text": "NO_PRIVATE_COMMENTS" }, "citations": [], "curator": [] }, { "id": 715, "year_from": 410, "year_to": 410, "description": " People. Recent estimates suggest that the total population of Roman-Britain may have been as high as 3 million people.§REF§Higham 2004: 9§REF§ However, this would have reduced dramatically with the departure of the Romans.", "note": null, "finalized": false, "created_date": null, "modified_date": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "expert_reviewed": false, "drb_reviewed": null, "name": "Polity_population", "polity_population_from": 3000000, "polity_population_to": 3000000, "polity": { "id": 574, "name": "gb_anglo_saxon", "start_year": 410, "end_year": 926, "long_name": "Anglo-Saxon England I", "new_name": "gb_anglo_saxon_1", "polity_tag": "LEGACY", "general_description": "<br>Anglo-Saxon England existed between the fall of Roman Britain in 410 CE and the quickly subsequent mass migration into the region of the Germanic speaking Angle, Saxon, and Jute tribes from western Europe, until the Norman invasion and conquest of 1066.<br>“The most developed vision of a ‘big’ sub-Roman Britain, with control over its own political and military destiny for well over a century, is that of Kenneth Dark, who has argued that Britain should not be divided during the fifth, and even the bulk of the sixth, century into ‘British’ and ‘Anglo-Saxon’ cultural and/or political provinces, but should be thought of as a generally ‘British’ whole. His thesis, in brief, is to postulate not just survival but continuing cultural, political and military power for the sub-Roman elite, both in the far west (where this view is comparatively uncontroversial) but also in the east, where it has to be imagined alongside incoming settlements. He postulates the sub-Roman community to have been the dominant force in insular affairs right up to c.570. Then, over a sixty year period, but for no very obvious reason, Anglo-Saxon kingship begins to emerge, the English conversion began and, in this scenario, Anglo- Saxon leaders overthrew British power and set about establishing their own kingdoms.”§REF§(Higham 2004: 4) Higham, Nick. ‘From Sub-Roman Britain to Anglo-Saxon England: Debating the Insular Dark Ages’, History Compass 2, no. 1 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1478-0542.2004.00085.x. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/XZT7A79K§REF§<br>Anglo-Saxon ‘England’ after the migration of the Germanic tribes from the European mainland was in fact formed of several kingdoms known as the Heptarchy: Wessex, Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia and the minor kingdoms of Essex, Sussex, and Kent all ruled by different monarchs or dynasties (in the case of the minor kingdoms), and who all at one time or another were allies or enemies, looking to claim more power from the others.<br>The three major kingdoms all looked at one point that they would become the dominant power and unite the kingdoms under one rule; Northumbria in the seventh century and Mercia in the eighth century. But it was the House of Wessex that rose to the greatest power under King Egbert at the beginning of the ninth century. During his reign 802-839 CE Wessex expanded rapidly across the south. It benefitted from its strategic position and its growing wealth enabled the purchase of the best warriors and military technology. It also led the wars against the incoming Viking invasions, whose first raid on the island had taken place in 793 CE. §REF§(Roberts et al 2014: 27) Roberts, Clayton, Roberts, F. David, and Bisson, Douglas. 2014. ‘Anglo-Saxon England: 450–1066’, in A History of England, Volume 1, 6th ed. Routledge. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/P2IHD9U3§REF§<br>Vikings, mainly from Denmark and Norway, raided and conquered territories in East Anglia, Essex and parts of Mercia and Northumbria between the 9th and 11th centuries. From 865 CE the Viking-settled region became known as Danelaw and was granted Danish self-rule in 884 CE under King Guthrum of Norway. Ongoing battles and attempts to expand territory on both sides resulted in the beginning of the breakup of Danelaw in 902 CE when the region of Essex submitted to the rule of King Æthelwald.§REF§(Roberts et al 2014: 27-28) Roberts, Clayton, Roberts, F. David, and Bisson, Douglas. 2014. ‘Anglo-Saxon England: 450–1066’, in A History of England, Volume 1, 6th ed. Routledge. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/P2IHD9U3§REF§<br>The region now known as England was not completely united as a country, the Kingdom of England, until 927 under King Æthelstan, after a drawn-out process of conflict and consolidation. Moreover, Northumbria, the northern most region of England and therefore the most susceptible to invasion by Scandinavian forces, continued to fall in and out of English and Danish rule until 954 when King Eadred brought it fully under English control, where it remained. At the same time, Lothian, the small area which bordered northern Northumbria, was ceded to Scotland as part of the deal.§REF§(Roberts et al 2014: 29-30) Roberts, Clayton, Roberts, F. David, and Bisson, Douglas. 2014. ‘Anglo-Saxon England: 450–1066’, in A History of England, Volume 1, 6th ed. Routledge. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/P2IHD9U3§REF§", "shapefile_name": null, "private_comment": "", "created_date": null, "modified_date": "2023-11-20T10:50:53.730666Z", "home_nga": null, "home_seshat_region": { "id": 20, "name": "Western Europe", "subregions_list": "British Isles, France, Low Countries", "mac_region": { "id": 5, "name": "Europe" } }, "private_comment_n": { "id": 1, "text": "NO_PRIVATE_COMMENTS" } }, "comment": null, "private_comment": { "id": 1, "text": "NO_PRIVATE_COMMENTS" }, "citations": [], "curator": [] }, { "id": 701, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "description": " People. The population of England was around 1.5 million in 1086 when the Domesday Book was written, which is close enough to the end of our polity date to assume this is a fair approximation of the population during this period.§REF§(Cantor 1982: 18) Cantor, Leonard. 2021. The English Medieval Landscape. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003159384. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/DEXKYD2§REF§", "note": null, "finalized": false, "created_date": null, "modified_date": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "expert_reviewed": false, "drb_reviewed": null, "name": "Polity_population", "polity_population_from": 1500000, "polity_population_to": 1500000, "polity": { "id": 606, "name": "gb_england_k", "start_year": 927, "end_year": 1065, "long_name": "Anglo-Saxon England II", "new_name": "gb_anglo_saxon_2", "polity_tag": "LEGACY", "general_description": "<br>The Kingdom of England was formed in 927 CE when the independent kingdoms of Wessex, Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia, Danelaw (the Danish occupied kingdom) and the minor kingdoms of Essex, Sussex, and Kent were finally unified as one country after under King Æthelstan, after a drawn-out process of conflict and consolidation in the preceding few centuries.<br>Northumbria, the northern most region of England and therefore the most susceptible to invasion by Scandinavian forces, continued to fall in and out of English and Danish rule until 954 CE when King Eadred brought it fully under English control, where it remained. At the same time, Lothian, the small area which bordered northern Northumbria, was ceded to Scotland as part of the deal.<br>In 1016 Cnut (Canute), the son of Swein of Denmark invaded and defeated the weak King Ethelred of England. He was invited to take up the throne of England and established a strong and united England. Despite being a Dane, he was Christian, and the English people and nobles wanted a strong ruler who would end the incessant raids from the north. He married Ethelred’s widow, Queen Emma of Normandy. Cnut was allied with the English and the Danes and brought peace to the kingdom. Cnut also became King of Denmark in 1019 and King of Norway in 1028, which along with England, formed the Great North Sea Empire under his rule. Though both of his sons succeeded his rule - Harald 1035-1040, and Harthacnut 1040-1042 - the death of the second resulted in Edward, the son of King Ethelred and Queen Emma, to be recalled from Normandy (France) to take the throne.<br>Anglo-Saxon monarchs then ruled a united Kingdom of England in peace until January 1066 with the death of King Edward, who had no children. A succession crisis occurred when Harold, Edward’s brother-in-law, and William, duke of Normandy, his cousin, both claimed that Edward had promised them the throne. Though Harold was crowned immediately after Edward’s death, William later invaded the south coast and defeated King Harold’s forces at the Battle of Hastings in October 1066. His succession to the English throne as William the Conqueror marked the beginning of Norman England – bringing with it new language, customs, and culture - and the end of the Anglo-Saxon period.", "shapefile_name": null, "private_comment": "", "created_date": "2023-07-10T15:44:50.145449Z", "modified_date": "2024-05-16T13:37:00.545128Z", "home_nga": null, "home_seshat_region": { "id": 20, "name": "Western Europe", "subregions_list": "British Isles, France, Low Countries", "mac_region": { "id": 5, "name": "Europe" } }, "private_comment_n": { "id": 1, "text": "NO_PRIVATE_COMMENTS" } }, "comment": null, "private_comment": { "id": 1, "text": "NO_PRIVATE_COMMENTS" }, "citations": [], "curator": [] }, { "id": 696, "year_from": 1860, "year_to": 1860, "description": " People.The 1870 statistical atlas of the US listed the area and population of the states and territories every ten years from 1790.§REF§ Walker 1874: 7. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/DUWG4XAX.§REF§ ", "note": null, "finalized": false, "created_date": null, "modified_date": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "expert_reviewed": false, "drb_reviewed": null, "name": "Polity_population", "polity_population_from": 31443321, "polity_population_to": 31443321, "polity": { "id": 563, "name": "us_antebellum", "start_year": 1776, "end_year": 1865, "long_name": "Antebellum US", "new_name": "us_antebellum", "polity_tag": "LEGACY", "general_description": "<br>This polity period spans from American Independence in 1776 following the American Revolution, until 1865 with the end of the American Civil War.", "shapefile_name": null, "private_comment": null, "created_date": null, "modified_date": null, "home_nga": null, "home_seshat_region": { "id": 22, "name": "East Coast", "subregions_list": "East Coast of US", "mac_region": { "id": 7, "name": "North America" } }, "private_comment_n": { "id": 1, "text": "NO_PRIVATE_COMMENTS" } }, "comment": null, "private_comment": { "id": 1, "text": "NO_PRIVATE_COMMENTS" }, "citations": [], "curator": [] } ] }