Mesopotamia

The land between the rivers, where the territorial empire was invented and then rebuilt about once a millennium on the same two hundred miles of alluvium. Akkad, Ur, Babylon and Assyria each claimed the last one's titles; the argument over which of them was an empire at all is older than most of the states in this collection.

The line below is a time axis. Position on it is date, so concurrency is visible: concurrent polities sit side by side rather than in sequence.

5 sourced edges run between this region and another, to Achaemenid Empire, Hittite Empire, Neo-Elamite Kingdom, Median Empire and Egypt, Saite Period. Those are not drawn on this line — a thread that crossed regions would assert a sequence nobody cited — but they are on each polity’s own page.

2200 BC2000 BC1800 BC1600 BC1400 BC1200 BC1000 BC800 BC600 BCAkkadian Empire 2334 BC – 2154 BCThird Dynasty of Ur 2112 BC – 2004 BCFirst Dynasty of Babylon 1894 BC – 1595 BCMitanni 1550–1500 BC to 1340–1260 BCMiddle Assyrian Kingdom 1363 BC – 1056 BCNeo-Assyrian Empire 911 BC – 609 BCNeo-Babylonian Empire 626 BC – 539 BC2112 BC Third Dynasty of Ur claimed legitimacy of Akkadian Empire1260 BC Mitanni conquered by Middle Assyrian Kingdom612 BC Neo-Babylonian Empire overthrew Neo-Assyrian Empire