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Highlights

  • Napoleon Bonaparte made headlines in late February, after allies of Vladimir Putin referenced his legacy in threats aimed at French President Emmanuel Macron.
  • Mahmud of Ghazni, a balanced conqueror, used archers on horseback to yield a lot of power within his large conquered region.
  • Genghis Khan is the "greatest" conqueror in history, often overlooked in Western references, despite his vast and brutal conquests.

Perhaps the adjective "greatest" is something of hollow praise for the men on this list.

After all, the defining characteristic of conquerors is the ability to violently usurp others and take their land and possessions by force; moreover, history's "greatest conquerers" convinced legions of men underneath them to pillage at scale.

Updated, February 2024: On February 28th, Napoleon Bonaparte – one of the "greatest conquerors in history" on this list – was surprisingly prominent in the news cycle in relation to ongoing conflict in Europe.

More specifically, prominent allies of Russian President Vladimir Putin invoked Napoleon in a direct warning to French President Emmanuel Macron, should Macron elect to deploy troops to aid Ukraine in their defense against Russia's ongoing occupation.

Chairman of Russia's State Duma Vyacheslav Volodin addressed Macron via social media, asserting: "To maintain his personal power, Macron could not think of anything better than to ignite a third world war. His initiatives are becoming dangerous for the citizens of France ... Before making such statements, it would be right for Macron to remember how it ended for Napoleon and his soldiers, more than 600,000 of whom were left lying in the damp earth."

Deputy chair of Russia's Security Council Dmitry Medvedev made a strikingly similar statement, hinting at a coordinated message: "The petty and tragic heirs of Bonaparte, trying on the golden epaulettes torn off 200 years ago, are eager for revenge with Napoleonic magnitude and are spouting fierce and extremely dangerous nonsense."

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Virtually all of these men were commendable strategists, with varying levels of intellect.

In some schools of thought, the blood of all those slain in the wake of their rampaging armies is entirely on their hands – an ethical consideration that didn't seem to slake their thirst to conquer in the slightest.

All the men on this list had a great and terrible influence on human history.

In one sense, they are among the most influential people in history, in the purest sense of the word "influence."

Multi-continental war, genocide, death, and destruction are some of the ways they exerted their influence; their legacy.

History shall always remember them as warmongers, for better or worse.

Truthfully, the lens of history judges these men not on exactly how many they killed or how much land they conquered, but their motives.

For the sake of this list, we measured their "greatness" as conquerors by the square miles they conquered. Most people probably couldn't even guess the number one conqueror in history, let alone consider him hated.

Recent history is always more pertinent to our lives, even if it is just as dead and gone as history from thousands of years ago.

Let's look at the greatest conquerors of all time, and see which conqueror wielded the largest influence.

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8 Francisco Pizarro: 480,000 Square Miles

Francisco Pizarro
via Wikipedia 

This Spanish Conquistador lived from 1471-1541, and was the leader of several expeditions to South America – where he would go on to pillage numerous parts of the continent, famously conquering much of the Incan empire.

Pizarro was inspired to conquer South America, along with other Spanish "explorers.," by the successes of Hernan Cortes' exploits, including the vast treasures he acquired.

Pizarro first unsuccessfully attacked the western coast of South America, but on his third expedition he landed in what is now Ecuador, and drove to the Incan capital of Tumbes, only to find it ruined by Incan civil war.

He eventually and fortuitously came across the unprepared Incan Emperor Atahualpa and captured him, after he had defeated his brother in the Incan civil war.

The Emperor would later be executed, and Pizarro effectively defeated an entire nation with only horses and 160 technologically advanced (at the time) soldiers.

He later had four children with two Incan princesses, and had conquered what is modern day Peru.

He's remembered in Peru as a sort of confusing figure, as he historically influenced the nation but was also unquestionably a brutal conqueror.

7 Mahmud of Ghazni: 680,000 Square Miles

Mahmud of Ghanzi
via Wikipedia

Mahmud of Ghazni lived from 971-1030 A.D., was the first Sultan in history, and is credited as the founder of the Ghaznavid empire.

"Sultan" had come to mean that he was the ruler of a great expanse of land that covered much of the Middle East, in what is now Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and some of India, along with a number of smaller countries.

His conquests are largely attributed to the use of extremely powerful archers on horseback, using compound bows atop horses to speed across the battlefield and kill from great distance.

Mahmud is possibly one of the best conquerors on this list, for despite his conquests he treasured learning, regularly bestowed honor upon wise and well-read men, and founded universities and mosques across the Middle East and Asia.

Though much of his wartime policy involved the death of infidels (or those who did not follow his sect of Islam specifically), he often tolerated religious differences as long as they didn't pose a military threat to him.

The Mahmud of Ghanzi is undoubtedly a conqueror that fits more into the grey areas of despotism, as he in many ways showed a temperate and learned disposition while ruling his empire.

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6 Napoleon Bonaparte: 720,000 Square Miles

Greatest Conqueror Of All Time Napoleon
via Wikimedia Commons

One of the more famous conquerors in history, Napoleon was a brilliant strategist and war general who quickly rose to the top of the military school in which he was raised and educated.

Not only did Bonaparte bring France to military greatness (and rose to Emperorship for ten years, from 1804-1814), he also created the reform that abolished feudalism and allowed widespread religious tolerance.

He also created a legal code for his people, called the Napoleonic Code, which served as a primary influence in the creation and adjustment of modern legal concepts worldwide.

Napoleon led the French army to conquer most of continental Europe.

His only blunder was invading Russia, which would eventually lead to his downfall and exile before his eventual death on the island of Elba.

Without a doubt, Napoleon is the most positive conqueror on this list, as he espoused many of the French revolutionary ideas that helped shape democracy as we know it today.

5 Attila the Hun: 1,450,000 Square Miles

Attila the Hun
via Andrzej Otrębski/Wikipedia

Attila The Hun, also known as Flagellum Dei, or "Scourge of God," is one of the greatest barbarian conquerors in human history.

The "Scourge of God" title was bestowed upon him due to the rampant destruction he rained down on the Roman Empire.

He led the Huns, an eastern European barbarian tribe, to conquer much of Eastern and Central Europe.

His date of birth remains unknown, but he reigned between 434 and 453 A.D., where he controlled an empire spanning across Italy to Germany, Russia, Poland, and southeastern Europe.

While he was never able to successfully conquer Persia and Constantinople, he repeatedly invaded the Roman Empire, and was renowned for the devastation and plundering he left in the wake of his barbarian hordes.

Attila dominated Europe during his reign, until the Visigoths and the Romans actually joined forces to defeat the conqueror.

He died in 453 A.D., and with no established order to follow him, the barbarian empire crumbled soon thereafter.

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4 Cyrus The Great: 2,090,000 Square Miles

Cyrus II
via Depositphotos

Often described as the founder of the Persian Empire, Cyrus The Great reigned from 559 to 530 B.C.

Persia was originally a state within the empire of Medes, until Cyrus liberated Persia, started a revolution, seized the Median capital of Ecbatana, and proclaimed himself ruler.

His Persian Empire was gigantic, as he conquered lands from India to the Middle East, northern Africa, and into Greece.

His conquests led to the Persian Empire being one of the largest and most historically influential empires in recorded history.

Unlike Attila, Cyrus created a political infrastructure under him that kept the Persian Empire going long after his death, and his exploits as a conqueror lead to the spread of Middle Eastern philosophy, literature, culture and religion across Europe and Asia.

Persia remained in existence for a long, long time and is often attributed to the spread of Islam and the Islamic "Golden Age."

3 Tamerlane: 2,145,000 Square Miles

Tamerlane
via Depositphotos

Timur, Tarmashirin Khan, or more commonly known in history as Tamerlane, is the second-greatest Asian conqueror who founded the Timurid dynasty.

A figure of the Islamic faith, he often called himself "the sword of Islam" and used religious rhetoric and aspirations to recreate Genghis Khan's Empire as a motive to drive his multicultural army all across Asia, Africa and Europe.

Incredibly, his vast expanses of military conquest were estimated to have caused 17 million deaths during his reign from 1370 to 1405; that figure is thought to comprise five percent of the population of the world at that time.

It may not surprise you to know that Tamerlane is known most prominently as a military figure and for his violent conquests across the world, rather than for his religious motivation, and his love for art and architecture.

Because of his focus on his beliefs, however, his existence and subsequent empire is the primary reason Christianity was largely expunged from Asia, and conversely, why the Muslim cultural world flourished.

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2 Alexander The Great: 2,180,000 Square Miles

Greatest Conquerers In History Alexander The Great
via Wikimedia Commons

Easily one of the greatest conquerors in western history, Alexander The Great created an empire so vast for its time that it beggared belief.

He succeeded his father, Philip II, when he was 20 years old, having been trained in warfare and tutored by Aristotle. Alexander The Great took command of the Macedonian Empire and ceaselessly spread from Greece eastward.

He defeated the Persians, conquered Egypt, and tore through Asia Minor, all the way to India – where he finally stopped his conquest at the behest of his soldiers.

His influence spread across the world, creating around twenty cities named after him, the most famous being Alexandria in Egypt.

Alexander The Great's empire also introduced trade between the East and the West, though as something of an unintended consequence, historically speaking.

He also greatly influenced Rome and Roman thinking in the military, as Romans often looked to Alexander and his tactics for military knowledge.

In fact, his military brilliance was so extensive that military academies around the world still teach tactics he created to this day.

After his death in 323 B.C. his empire split into a number of parts, as territories and rulers squabbled over rights to rule.

Despite the fall of the Macedonian empire, his influence on the world would greatly change the course of human history.

1 Genghis Khan: 4,860,000 Square Miles

Genghis Khan
Photo Credit: Hecke06 / Deposit Photos

Without a doubt, the greatest conqueror in history – who conquered more than double the area of land that Alexander the Great did – is often one of the most forgotten conquerors in the minds of the people of the Western world.

Genghis Khan (the birth name of Temujin) is often reduced to a caricature, a cartoonish idea of a barbaric warlord who terrorized villages. Well, he certainly did terrorize plenty of villages over his lifetime.

He was born in 1162 in Mongolia, and created his empire first by unifying the nomadic tribes of northeast Asia into one army, where he would sweep across Asia and Western Europe with unprecedented speed and efficiency.

He conquered what is nearly the entirety of modern day China, spilling over into Russia, Turkey, most of the Persian Middle East, and nearly everything in between (except India).

The scope of his conquests is so enormous that it seemed nearly impossible for anyone at the time, with only the speed of horseback, to have created such a massive empire as that of the Mongol Empire.

Though he is often credited with creating the unified concept of the Silk Road from Asia to Europe, that's about the extent of the positive depictions of Genghis Khan, as he is responsible for the deaths and conquest of innumerable peoples across the known world.

However, he is remembered; since his death in 1227 A.D., Genghis Khan remains the single greatest conqueror in human history by an incredibly wide margin.