just twelve years ago in 2006 marked the
200 year anniversary since the death of
the Holy Roman Empire one of the longest
existing empires in world history
I say Empire in air quotes because the
history of the Holy Roman Empire and the
way it operated is incredibly
complicated and calling it an empire is
actually fairly controversial and so is
calling it Roman and so is calling it
holy so if you're curious about a little
Imperial backstory I encourage you to go
check out wonder wise video about the
subject after this one since we're doing
a collab on it anyway what would the
world look like if the Holy Roman Empire
was for whatever reason resurrected
today if the Empire's borders were
recreated at the height of the
historical Imperial territory in 1155
then the Empire would encompass
practically all of modern-day Germany
Austria Switzerland the Czech Republic
Slovenia Luxembourg and the Netherlands
while also occupied territory taken from
Belgium France Italy Croatia Poland and
Russia territory from 13 total countries
figuring out where the capital city of
this Empire would be is pretty difficult
since the historic Empire never actually
had one and was usually just based on
where the current emperor was residing
if the old government of the Empire came
back into modern day it would mean that
the emperor would be an elected office
maybe the citizens would elect this
person or a group like the Electoral
College would but either way the 10
biggest cities in the Empire would be
mostly concentrated in Germany and Italy
with the top 5 biggest being Munich
Homburg Vienna Rome and Berlin the
population of the modern Empire would be
approximately 215 million people which
is fascinating when you consider what
the population of the Empire was just a
few centuries ago in 1618 before the 30
Years War the Empire was home to just 21
million people and true the territory
then was smaller than in my modern
example but 21 million people is only
about a quarter of modern Germany's
population alone in 1648 after the 30
Years War the Empire's population shrank
to just 16 million meaning that in 30
years of war nearly one out of every
four people died imagine
similar disaster happening today and
even further the largest city 400 years
ago in 1600 wasn't even in the top five
today Prague Prague's population then
was just a hundred thousand people in
Vienna's was only 50 thousand vienna
today has nearly 2 million so the
numbers of people living inside the
Imperial borders has definitely grown in
the century since but what about the
demographics of that population it's
probably changed a little but it's still
dominated by the Germans and the
Italians here's the Empire's modern
ethnic diversity where you can clearly
see the percentage of Germans Italians
and French and then here's the
linguistic diversity for you to compare
that to which looks pretty similar with
the German Italian and French languages
being unsurprisingly the most spoken
while those are probably pretty similar
to how they used to be the religious
composition of the modern Empire is
certainly radically different Christians
only make up 58 percent of the modern
Empire's territory split between 45%
Catholics and 13% Protestants
non-religious people in atheists make up
the next largest bloc at a massive 33
percent of the population while Muslims
make up what is certainly another large
increase from hundreds of years ago at
3% of the current population the modern
Holy Roman Empire would also have an
enormous economy with a nominal GDP of
9.2 3 2 trillion US dollars mostly owing
to wealthy areas like Germany the
Netherlands Belgium and northern Italy
this makes the Empire the third largest
economy in the world beating out Japan
but staying just behind China this huge
economy and population also means the
Imperial military would be quite
formidable
with a budget of 109 billion dollars in
an active force of 694 thousand soldiers
with an additional million in reserves
that's the world's sixth largest
standing army ahead of South Korea and
the third largest budget but that budget
is only about half of what the current
European Union combined spends on
defense
about 200 billion dollars overall the
Holy Roman Empire in the modern world
would be an absolute powerhouse
it would dominate European politics and
with an economy close in size to China's
in a population larger than Russia
it could have aspirations of achieving
global superpower status
like I mentioned near the beginning of
this video if you're curious to learn
more about the origins and history of
the entire historical Holy Roman Empire
I encourage you to go check out my
friend wonder wise video on that subject
next thanks for watching and I'll see
you later on this week for the regularly
uploaded real life lore video next
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