This is an image of the Roman Empire
at the height of her power in the year 117 AD.
History was cruel to the Empire, however, and over the centuries
she gradually lost power and eventually disappeared
altogether.
But what would a country with the same borders
as the old Empire look like today in the 21st century?
What if all of the territory of the Roman Empire
suddenly united tomorrow and recreated
the country in a modern form?
Let me start by saying that this is outrageously impossible.
There is no way that you could possibly
convince Spain, England, Turkey, and Syria
into the same country.
Crimea would get a little more awkward than it already is,
too.
But let us suspend our disbelief for a moment
and just imagine what it would actually look like
and what living in it would be like.
So first off, this is a modern map
and these are what the borders of the Roman Empire
would look like were it to come back into existence.
In total, 53 different countries would
lose all or some of their territory
to the Empire, which would span over
six million square kilometers in size.
This sounds very impressive, but the Empire would actually only
be the seventh largest country in the world by size.
It would be just bigger than India,
but it would be smaller than Australia and Brazil.
And Russia, meanwhile, would be nearly three times the size
of the Empire.
But size isn't necessarily everything.
If we examine the population of this hypothetical empire,
it would be roughly 711 million people, or about 10%
of the total global population.
The original Roman Empire in antiquity
had 10 times fewer citizens at about 70 million people.
But back then, that was 21% of the entire global population.
The modern Empire's population would
be enough to place it in third place in terms of population
size, but both India and China would
retain higher populations.
The Empire would, however, have more than double the population
of the United States and would boast
some very impressive cities.
If we were to speculate on a hypothetical capital
for this Empire, we would probably
come across Istanbul, which was a historic capital
of the Empire back when it was known as Constantinople.
Today, the population of Istanbul
is sitting around 14.6 million people,
making it by far the largest city in this Empire.
At the height of the city during the actual empire in 580,
the population was 450,000.
But even earlier in 180 AD, however, the city of Rome
was the very first city in the world
to reach a population of one million people.
Even though today Rome has a population of well over two
million, there would still be much bigger
cities within the borders of the Empire today,
like Cairo, London, Baghdad, and Alexandria.
At first thought, it might seem like such a huge country would
be an economic powerhouse.
And while that would be true, it wouldn't
be exactly what you think.
All of this territory combined would give the modern Roman
Empire a GDP of $15.99 trillion US, which
would mean that the empire would only be the world's
second largest economy.
Despite having a population that would be less than half
of the modern Empire's, the United States
would actually still have a larger GDP,
at around $18 trillion.
The differences in per capita income,
however, would be even more shocking.
The modern Roman Empire would have
territory in wealthier areas, like England, France,
and Germany, but also in more impoverished areas
like Iraq, Armenia, and Libya.
For this reason, the average income
of citizens within the empire would be at around $24,623.
And this is a pretty low value.
The Empire would be placed 52nd in the world in terms
of how much money the average citizen was earning, just
ahead of Kazakhstan but behind Latvia.
With a large GDP and population, however, the Empire
would have a very large standing army.
Averaging all of the active military personnel
in the territories within the empire, that
would mean the Empire's standing military
would be at around 2,771,000, which
would make the Roman military the largest standing
force in the world currently.
The final two big questions we have
left to examine with this country
are, one, what would be the dominant languages and, two,
what would be the dominant religions.
To begin, the most widely spoken language within the country
would certainly be Arabic, which 32% of the population
would be speaking.
French would be the second most spoken language, with about 14%
of the population understanding it,
while Turkish would be third at about 9.5%,
followed by Italian and English to collectively form
the top five most spoken languages
within the modern Empire.
And finally, we need to explore what
the religious make-up of such a vast country would look like.
Basically, Muslims would be the largest religious group
inside the modern Empire, making up 44.6%
of the total population.
42.2% of that value would be Sunni Muslims, while just 2.4%
would be Shia Muslims.
Interestingly, this would make the modern Roman Empire
the largest Muslim country in the world.
Christians would be the second largest group collectively,
forming 39.3% of the population.
Of that, Catholics would comprise
25.2% of the total population, while Orthodox Christians would
be 8.2% and Protestants would be 5.6%.
Also interestingly, these numbers
would mean that the modern Roman Empire would also
be the world's largest Christian nation.
Jews would form only about 1% of the total population,
while atheists, agnostics, or non-religious would
form 10.5% of the country.
It's really fascinating to think what a country like this
would look like in the modern world
and with modern technology and with modern ideas.
Could it possibly ever survive and
what would daily life be like living within it?
These are questions for another time.
But please leave your comments.
If you have your own answers or questions,
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And as always, everybody, thank you for watching.
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