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In this video I take a look at the greatest extent of every European country reached its greatest. Finding out about their greatest territorial extent and how they eventually lost land over time, reaching their current borders. From Bulgaria's massive Balkan Empire to Austria's dominance under the Habsburgs; from France’s Napoleonic expansion to Poland-Lithuania’s one-million-square-kilometer reach. Some, like Albania and Hungary, lost large portions of their land through wars and treaties - such as the Treaty of Trianon, in Hungary's case. While others, like Andorra and Iceland, have always remained the same size. Not to mention the large examples of the old Swedish Empire, or Norway's medieval Kingdom that reached into northern Scotland.
TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 European Countries Used To be Bigger
00:21 Bulgaria
01:14 Albania
01:52 Kosovo
02:10 Andorra
02:25 Austria
03:25 Saily
04:45 Belarus
05:20 Belgium
06:03 Bosnia & Herzegovina
06:40 Croatia
07:11 Cyprus
07:49 Czechia
Show More Show Less View Video Transcript
0:00
Last week I made a video that was a little unnecessarily long
0:04
and then this week I'm making a video about every European country, because why not
0:09
Europe has about 50 countries, and each of them has a specific size, of course
0:15
but at one point in history, most of them were considerably bigger than they are today
0:21
Some of them were huge, like Bulgaria, which is pretty small today at around 110,000 square
0:28
kilometers but used to be gigantic in the 9th century with its Balkan Empire which stretched
0:34
to at least 400,000 square kilometers, conquering various lands throughout the Balkans, occupying
0:40
entire modern countries like Romania, Moldova, Serbia, parts of Hungary, Greece, even stretching
0:47
into Ukraine. Byzantine and later Ottoman conquests reduced it and Bulgaria lost most of its land
0:54
And just like it, a lot of countries went through similar processes
0:58
So in this video, we are going to take a look at every European country at its greatest extent
1:14
Let's do it alphabetically, starting with Albania. Their current size is only about 28,000 square kilometers
1:20
However, their largest modern extent was during their brief independence in 1912 when it included parts of modern Kosovo and western North Macedonia
1:31
They didn't keep it for long soon after the London Conference of 1913 officially drew Albania's modern borders, giving Kosovo back to Serbia at the time and western Macedonia to Serbia and Greece
1:43
Albania also lost the northern Epirus region, claimed by Greece as well
1:48
And so today it is slightly smaller than it once was. And since we're here in the region, maybe we can mention Kosovo straight away
1:56
It's a very recent country. And so it's essentially as big as it ever was
2:01
I guess you could connect it to the ancient kingdom of Tardania
2:05
which was centered around modern Kosovo in the 4th century BC, but it might be a little bit of a stretch
2:10
Next is Andorra, which in similar fashion is as big as it's ever been
2:15
Founded as a co-principality in 1278, the small and mountainous country has always had the same size of only 468 square kilometers
2:25
But up next is a big one and one of the best examples for this greatest extent to modern size comparisons, Austria
2:33
Their current size is 83,879 square kilometers, but it used to be much bigger
2:39
The Austro-Hungarian Empire, which existed from 1867 to 1918, covered over 676,000 square kilometers
2:49
And even if we want to argue that most of that was the Kingdom of Hungary within the empire
2:54
the Austrian Empire alone included Austria proper, Czechia, Galicia, Tyrol, Slovenia, and parts of Croatia
3:02
Before that, the Habsburg monarchy controlled even more land, including Spain and parts of the Holy Roman Empire at various points. The Habsburgs gained
3:11
territories through dynastic marriages, diplomacy and wars, controlling much of Central and Eastern
3:18
Europe. After World War I, the Austro-Hungarian Empire dissolved. Austria became a small republic
3:23
never being as big as it used to be. Now, if you're from the US and you're watching this video
3:28
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4:44
And now let's get back to the video. Going on to the B's we have Belarus. Its current size is 207,000
4:50
square kilometers, but it's never really been any bigger. Belarus as a concept was created after the
4:56
dissolution of the USSR. Before that, it had been part of other large states in the region
5:02
like the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. But Belarus is neither Polish nor Lithuanian, so
5:06
attributing that size to it would be wrong in my opinion. The only medieval state I could trace
5:12
it back to is the Principality of Polotsk, which existed in part of modern Belarus, but
5:17
it was smaller than the modern country. When it comes to Belgium, their current size is around
5:23
30,000 square kilometers. Belgium was also never any bigger within Europe. The only exception we
5:29
could make to that statement is the territories that it held during their revolution to break
5:33
away from the Netherlands, briefly holding Luxembourg and the Dutch Limburg province during
5:38
the war. Belgium's overseas empire, however, peaked in the early 20th century with the Congo
5:44
free state at 2 million square kilometers but my point here isn to include colonial empires because they were precisely that colonies not integral parts of this country So for the sake of this video and this greatest extent concept we going to stick to continental
6:01
Europe. I'm sorry, Portugal. Moving on to Bosnia and Herzegovina. The current country is about 51,000
6:08
square kilometers, but the medieval kingdom of Bosnia, which existed in the 14th century
6:13
covered parts of Croatia, Serbia, and Montenegro too. However, their largest extent didn't last
6:19
long. The Ottomans conquered it in 1463, fully incorporating all of Bosnia into their empire
6:25
It later became a part of Yugoslavia until gaining independence under its modern borders
6:30
It's even arguable that today Bosnia proper is only actually half of the country
6:35
with the Serbian-controlled Srebska holding a de facto rule on the other half
6:40
And we already covered Bulgaria at the start of the video, so now we can move forward to the seas
6:45
starting with Croatia. Croatia's size today is 56,594 square kilometers, but its largest extent
6:53
was hundreds and hundreds of years ago, the kingdom of Croatia in the 11th and 12th century
6:59
which was independent before joining Hungary. It controlled Dalmatia and parts of Bosnia
7:04
It then lost its influence due to neighboring powers taking over such as the Habsburgs
7:09
the Hungarians and the Ottomans. Technically outside of continental Europe, but in the continent
7:15
of Europe, is the island of Cyprus. Its current official size is 9,251 square kilometers
7:22
but arguably it's less, about half, since the Turkish northern Cyprus breakaway state
7:28
takes up half of the island. But between the 12th and 15th centuries, they had more land
7:33
Not only did it control the entire island, but also some small territories in the Middle East
7:38
coast. It was ruled by the Lusignan dynasty after the crusaders took over the island from the
7:44
Byzantine Empire in 1191. It was later conquered by the Ottomans in 1571. With Czechia, we immediately
7:51
think of Czechoslovakia, which was of course larger. The current size of the country is
7:56
78,000 square kilometers while the Union was 140,000. However, I believe their largest extent
8:03
was during the 13th and 14th centuries, when the medieval kingdom of Bohemia held Czechia proper
8:09
plus lands in what is now Austria to the south and Germany to the north
8:14
Regarding Denmark, its current size of 42,933 square kilometers seems pretty small when we
8:21
compare it to the greatest extent of the Kalmer Union, which existed between 1397 and 1523
8:28
It united Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, and Greenland. It was achieved by Queen Margaret I of Denmark and controlled a territory of over 2.8 million square kilometers
8:40
Sweden left the Union in 1523. Denmark lost Norway to Sweden in 1814, but retained Greenland and the Faroe Islands, which it holds until today
8:49
And will continue to because they're not for sale. Estonia and Latvia we should actually cover together because their greatest extent in the past actually happened when the two countries were united
9:00
Or rather the two regions. Estonia is 45,000 square kilometers today, Latvia is slightly bigger at 64, but they used to be
9:08
bigger, both of them, if nothing else because they existed together through the medieval
9:12
Livonian confederation which stretched across these two Baltic regions. Eventually it was
9:17
absorbed by Poland, Lithuania, Sweden and later Russia. They regained independence in 1918 and
9:23
then again in 1991. And I think we have to interrupt the alphabetical order a little bit
9:28
more because since we're here, we might as well cover Lithuania. Its current size is 65,300 square
9:34
kilometers, but its largest extent, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the 14th to 16th centuries
9:40
was 132,000 square kilometers. It then united with Poland into the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
9:47
which took up a gigantic 1 million square kilometers. Eventually, it became weakened and
9:53
partitioned between Russia, Austria and Prussia and I would say that is also the greatest extent
9:59
of Poland itself although at other points in history it was also bigger than it is today
10:05
For instance, interwar Poland had 387,000 square kilometers, it was slightly larger than the modern
10:12
one which only has 322. Finland's case isn't as noticeable as Poland's but it also used to be a
10:18
little bit larger. Its current size is 338,000 square kilometers but it also used to control a
10:25
larger part of Karelia, Sala and Petsamo up north. The winter war against the Soviets in 1939 led to
10:32
these territorial losses to the Soviet Union which weren't recovered when it collapsed in 1991
10:38
But with France we go back to a case of a gigantic contrast. Its current size is quite large already
10:44
at 551,000 square kilometers, but during the early 19th century, as Napoleon conquered most of Europe
10:51
France's direct and indirect territorial control grew a lot, arguably to 860,000 square kilometers
10:59
ruling Spain, Italy, the Banelux, Western Germany, and Poland. Napoleon's defeat in 1815 ended
11:06
its European dominance and brought France back down to its current borders. And Germany is
11:12
as you probably know, another big one. Its current size is 357,000 square kilometers
11:18
It used to be slightly bigger under the German Empire between 1871 and 1918, which controlled
11:23
more territories in Europe before losing them after World War I. However, its peak territorial
11:28
control came under the Third Reich in 1942 during World War II. It essentially controlled all of
11:34
Europe with the exception of the UK, neutral states like Switzerland, Portugal, Spain, and Sweden
11:40
and other allied powers the direct control of their territory was about 633 square kilometers which they lost entirely after the war Further south and also starting with a G we have Greece currently at 131 square kilometers It a little bit difficult to choose
11:59
which former state we should take a look at when it comes to measuring the greatest extent of a
12:04
Greek nation. I guess it would either be the Byzantine Empire or maybe Alexander the Great's
12:09
empire at its whopping 2 million square kilometers, although many claim Alexander was Macedonian
12:15
attributing its predecessor status to northern Macedonia which is now only 25,000 square
12:21
kilometers. This is a point of great dispute between Macedonians and Greeks which have their own
12:25
region of Macedonia arguably more connected to Alexander's original kingdom. Modern Greece's
12:31
largest extent I guess technically was in 1920 with the Treaty of Sèvres which gave it Thrace
12:38
and parts of Turkey but this control never materialized so I guess we could also say that
12:43
Greece now is at its largest territorial extent. Hungary, however, is another fascinating example
12:49
of a country that used to objectively be much larger. Today it's 93,000 square kilometers
12:55
but the medieval kingdom of Hungary stretched over modern Hungary, Slovakia, Croatia, and parts of
13:01
Romania, Ukraine, Serbia, and Austria, and it controlled most of these lands within the
13:06
Austro-Hungarian Empire until the end of World War I. The Treaty of Trianon in 1920 reduced Hungary
13:12
by about two-thirds, losing Slovakia, Transylvania, and Croatia. Iceland, as is the case with almost
13:19
every island, is as big as it ever was, controlling the entirety of its island at 103,000 square
13:26
kilometers. And Ireland's case as a fellow island is pretty similar. It doesn't hold all of Ireland
13:32
today, but it used to before British rule. There was a single United Ireland Kingdom in the 12th
13:37
century. Its current size is 70,000 square kilometers, but the whole island is larger at
13:43
84,000, so I guess it did used to be a little bigger. Italy's case is similar to Greece, and
13:49
we need to go all the way back into antiquity to a debatable predecessor state to find the largest
13:55
contrast. Their current size is 300,000 square kilometers. One could argue their greatest extent
14:00
was the Roman Empire at its height in the 2nd century AD when they controlled much of Europe
14:05
but were the Romans really a direct predecessor of modern Italy? I think a fair comparison would be to look at the size of the Kingdom of Italy in the 20th century
14:14
before losing their conquered land at the end of World War II. They came to hold Corsica, part of southern France, Istria, Trieste, part of Dalmatia, and Albania
14:23
And remember how Poland was eventually partitioned among its neighbors? Well, the next country on our list, Luxembourg, was as well
14:30
Today Luxembourg is pretty small, at only 2.5 thousand square kilometers. However, it was much larger in the 14th century as a powerful duchy in the Holy Roman Empire
14:41
Over three times larger, in fact, than it currently is at over 10,000 square kilometers
14:45
It eventually lost that land to its neighbors of France, Belgium, and Germany
14:50
Malta, another island, is also at its current and largest possible extent of 316 square kilometers
14:57
Moldova is only 33,846 square kilometers today, but the Principality of Moldavia was larger in the Middle Ages
15:05
including small parts of modern Romania and Ukraine, essentially doubling its modern territory
15:10
It was then absorbed into the Ottoman Empire, Russia, Romania, achieving independence at a
15:15
smaller size. Monaco was also once slightly larger but lost land to France in agreement
15:21
to remain independent. It's only two square kilometers today. Interestingly, they've been
15:25
using some land reclamation techniques and expanding further into the Mediterranean Ocean
15:30
so their largest extent may be yet to come. Montenegro is another super small country at
15:36
only 13,800 square kilometers but it is as big as it's ever been. Other instances of their
15:42
existence as a sovereign state throughout history were much smaller. The Netherlands also had a
15:48
gigantic colonial empire but that doesn't count here. Within Europe their greatest extent goes
15:53
back to when it ruled both Belgium and Luxembourg under the United Kingdom of the Netherlands in
15:58
1813. That size of 76,000 square kilometers of the entire Benelux was then reduced to the current
16:04
41,000, after the other two countries gained independence. Norway is another decently sized
16:10
country, 385,000 square kilometers. One could argue their greatest extent came at different
16:15
times, either at the Kalmar Union or the unions with Denmark and Sweden, but Norway wasn't in
16:20
charge of any of those, and so I would say their true greatest extent came under the medieval
16:26
Kingdom of Norway in the year of 1263 when they held Greenland, Iceland, part of the Kola Peninsula
16:32
in Russia, as well as Northern Scotland, which brought them to around 750,000 square kilometers
16:39
Regarding Portugal, keeping colonial empires out of this really hinders them because we've
16:43
basically had the same border since the 13th century at a size of 92,000 square kilometers
16:49
I guess the most extra land we could include in Europe is the region of Olivensa, conquered
16:55
by the Spanish and illegally held by them until today. Romania is another pretty big country too
17:01
at 238 000 square kilometers. However, during the early 20th century following World War I
17:06
Greater Romania existed and was larger, including Moldovia, Bessarabia and a little bit of what is
17:12
now Bulgaria. It lost territories to the Germans and Soviets during World War II, recovering some
17:18
at the end of the war but not as many as before. Russia is already the biggest country in the world
17:23
world today, but it used to be a little bigger. The Russian Empire used to control even more territory, especially within Europe, and also
17:30
Alaska in North America. San Marino has always had the same territory, never increasing nor losing territory, a super
17:36
small republic of only 61 square kilometers. Serbia however is a whole other story similar in fact to our first example of Bulgaria Its current size is 88 square kilometers but there have been many times throughout its history when it was bigger You
17:51
don't even have to go super far back. In 1992 they held Montenegro and Kosovo but their largest
17:57
extent was the Serbian Empire which existed in 1346 which controlled Serbia, Macedonia
18:04
Montenegro, Albania and parts of Greece and Bosnia. Serbia was also a key part of Yugoslavia from
18:10
1918 to 1992, which was much larger than the country is today, but other countries that were
18:16
a part of it eventually gained their own independence. Slovakia only gained independence
18:21
in modern history and was a part of Hungary from very early on, since like 1895. Its current size
18:27
is 49,000 square kilometers and I think it is the largest extent of the country ever. We can of
18:32
course include Czechoslovakia too, but it wasn't in charge of the union between the two countries
18:36
If anything, it was under Czechia's stronger rule. And the neighboring and similarly named Slovenia has a similar situation
18:45
At 20,000 square kilometers, the only largest state I could find here were the Illidian provinces
18:51
a Napoleonic puppet state from 1809. Its capital, Lyubak, is now Liubljana in Slovenia
18:57
It's stretched into parts of Italy, Croatia, and Austria. But it's a little debatable if we could consider this a Slovene predecessor state
19:04
it was more of a Napoleonic creation. But we're followed by another very big example which is
19:10
Spain. Spain is pretty big today at half a million square kilometers. It of course was gigantic
19:16
overseas with its colonial empire taking up half of both North and South America plus Cuba, a bunch
19:22
of other islands and the Philippines but even in our restricted European continent universe it was
19:29
also quite bigger than it is now at many points. In the year of 1600, Spain controlled the additional
19:35
territories of Portugal, the two Sicilies, Sardinia, and additional territories in the Netherlands
19:40
France, and Northern Italy, all acquired mostly through dynastic unions. Arguably even bigger than
19:46
that was the Empire of Charles V, a few years before in 1544, also known typically as the
19:53
Habsburg Empire, which in addition to those territories we just mentioned, also technically
19:57
ruled over the entire Holy Roman Empire with additional direct rule over Austria, Bohemia
20:03
parts of Hungary and the entire Burgundian Low Countries. Another great example of territory
20:09
size contrast is Sweden. Today Sweden is 450,000 square kilometers. However, the 17th century
20:16
Swedish Empire also controlled Finland, Estonia, Latvia and even parts of Germany, Poland and Russia
20:23
It conquered most of it during the Thirty Years' War and then following wars with Poland and Russia
20:28
but eventually lost most of it in the Great Northern War in 1721
20:33
They kept Finland until 1809, then gained Norway in 1814 as a replacement, sort of
20:38
losing that too in 1905 and reaching their current size much smaller than they used to be
20:44
Switzerland was never much bigger than it is now, at 41,000 square kilometers
20:48
and it's maintained stable borders since the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815
20:54
However, at some point in its existence, when it was still expanding from the first groups of cantons
20:59
which began uniting in 1385, it did have some associate states outside the current borders
21:05
like the French city of Moulhaus. Plus, some of its member states did have larger territories before
21:11
such as the Crisson canton, which stretched into modern Italy in about 1512
21:16
Getting close to the end of our list, we have Ukraine. Their current size is 600,000 square
21:22
kilometers, including the enemy-occupied territories. Their largest extent would perhaps be the Kievan Rus, which existed between the 9th and 13th centuries and controlled much of
21:32
Eastern Europe. It was then dissolved upon the Mongol invasions, but it might be wrong to call
21:38
the Kievan Rus as a single state. While it did kind of begin as such, it was more of an aggregation
21:43
of principalities, their total size was about 1.3 million square kilometers. And finally, the United Kingdom
21:51
Its current size is 243,000 square kilometers, while the British Empire peaking in the 1920s
21:57
was the largest in history, covering 35.5 million square kilometers, we are not including colonial
22:04
empires here. So the greatest extent of the British Empire within Europe would have to be when they held
22:10
all of Ireland, only briefly increasing their territory. We could however look at England individually and go back to the Angevin Empire in 1190
22:19
when they ruled England, parts of Wales and Ireland and basically half of France in the
22:24
west, Aquitaine, Brittany, Normandy and a few more regions. So that is every European country at its greatest extent
22:33
Did you notice any mistakes and also would you like to see any of these countries go
22:37
back to their larger size? Let me know in the comments. Thank you so much to my Patrons
22:41
for supporting me over on Patreon. I'm going to upload all of the maps I used for this
22:46
video to Patreon in high resolution so I don't know, if you want to print out a map of Serbia
22:52
at its greatest extent to put up on your wall, you can join our community there, supporting
22:57
the channel and getting that as well. If not, I hope you enjoyed just watching the video
23:01
and I will see you next time for more general knowledge. today's moomin cup is i believe a repeat it is this one of a girl with a pan on her head and
23:22
then she's like she has a glowing orb and then some buttons maybe she found a palantir and she
23:28
is looking in into like sauron's head or something oh and she's holding another one she has like a
23:34
crystal ball on one hand and then she's just walking away uh because she heard me say all of this nonsense
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