History Main / SpaceFillingEmpire

* ''TabletopGame/BattleTech'': The majority of the Inner Sphere is ruled by a grand total of five [[FeudalFuture Feudal Houses]].

This trope is so prevalent that the Website/AlternateHistoryDotCom wiki even has [[http://wiki.alternatehistory.com/doku.php?id=alternate_history:space_filling_empire its own page]] for it.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}}'': The eastern edge of the world map has several of these, that includes Cathay, Nippon, and Ind (each of which is a FantasyCounterpartCulture to, respectively, ImperialChina, Feudal Japan, and Ancient India). Cathay would end up being UnseenNoMore almost ''thirty years'' after the game launched, being given AdaptationExpansion in ''VideoGame/TotalWarWarhammerIII'' (with GW [[WordOfGod confirming most of this content would be backported into Warhammer: The Old World]]).

* ''Franchise/AvatarTheLastAirbender'': Both teh original''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'' and its sequel ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra'' take place in a universe where there are four nations spread about the planet: Fire Nation, Air Nomads, Earth Nation, and Water Tribe. The Water Tribe occupates two different regions, the North and South Poles, as well as the small Foggy Swamp Tribe in the Earth Nation. The all-but-extinct Air Nomads were traditionally nomadic, though they had four temples that acted as their central bases, with a fifth temple added in the sequel series as they try to revive the culture of the Air Nomads. A fifth nation, known as the United Republic, is formed in the sequel from the area where the Fire Nation first invaded the Earth Kingdom after the war ended with the townspeople refusing to separate as many have learned to co-exist including marriages between the two nations citizens.

* Done with the first map ever printed of the planet ''TabletopGame/{{Mystara}}'', which depicted a major hunk of continent as "the Empire of Dorfin IV", and showed the Empire of Thyatis (whose actual boundaries were much less) encompassing the entire "Known World" region. Averted and {{Lampshaded}} by Bruce Heard's ''Voyages of the Princess Ark'' article series, which revealed this map to be a complete fraud, perpetuated by a DeadpanSnarker who'd named its various Space Filling Empires after his wife, his mistress, and his dog.
* Averted in the majority of the timelines of ''TabletopGame/{{GURPS}}''. Even Reich-5, which was conquered by the Axis powers, is still full of minor nations that were too insignificant to directly take over and/or voluntarily joined the Axis.
* In ''Film/TheLordOfTheRings'' SpecialEdition ''TabletopGame/{{Risk}}'' game, the 1-on-1 BlackAndWhiteMorality set up has roughly 1/3 of the territories (most of the unaligned ones) occupied by 2 neutral troops each. This is to help balance the game at the outset, creating enough of a hindrance that neither player can simply sweep across the board on the first turn, but also giving the players a chance to use their strategic defensive positions without having to conquer half the map first.

* In ''TabletopGame/BattleTech'', the majority of the Inner Sphere is ruled by a grand total of five [[FeudalFuture Feudal Houses]].
* In ''TabletopGame/TwentyThreeHundredAD'', Mexico has absorbed all the other Central American countries with the exception of Panama (they also have large parts of California, Arizona, and New Mexico, [[MexicoCalledTheyWantTexasBack and for a while they held onto Texas as well]]).
* Inverted in ''TabletopGame/AnimaBeyondFantasy'': For several centuries, the (known by humans) world has been under the control of a single [[TheEmpire empire]]. After things get messed up, several nations go from declaring independence ''and'' opposing the Empire (Azur Alliance) to independize and watch what happens waiting to act with one band or another, or simply ignore all the fuss and go in their own. By far the three major [[spoiler:not in the shadows]] powers are the already mentioned Empire of Abel (much larger and powerful than any other, but with its forces scattered over its entire area) and Azur Alliance (considerably smaller than Abel, but looking for ways to offset that difference of power and with its armies much more concentrated), plus the Holy Church of Abel (very small in geographical terms, but having significant political and especially religious power).
* In ''TabletopGame/TheHyborianCampaign'', Vendhya (which was originally a FantasyCounterpartCulture of India in Literature/ConanTheBarbarian) could definitely be considered this by the time the campaign ended. It began conquering minor [=NPCs=], before going on to conquer one of the player empires and then proceeded to subjugate everything between [[FarEast Khitai]] in the east to Shem to the west. Note that Shem is the FantasyCounterpartCulture of ''Egypt''.
* ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}}'' has several located on the eastern edge of the world map, such as Cathay, Nippon, and Ind (each of which is a FantasyCounterpartCulture to, respectively, ImperialChina, Feudal Japan, and Ancient India). Cathay would end up being UnseenNoMore almost ''thirty years'' after the game launched, being given AdaptationExpansion in ''VideoGame/TotalWarWarhammerIII'' (with GW [[WordOfGod confirming most of this content would be backported into Warhammer: The Old World]]).

* [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] in ''Literature/LookToTheWest'': much of West Africa becomes officially known as the Space-Filling Empire after its main architects, a Mr. Space and a Mr. Filling.
* Yakutia in ''Literature/SuperpowerEmpireChina1912''.
* ''Literature/DecadesOfDarkness'' has this with the US which conquered most of the Americas, the Russian Federation which includes most of Eurasia and various member of the Restored Empire like Central Africa.
* The Literature/ChaosTimeline has the New Roman Empire, the Russias and the German technocracy. However, the trope is mostly avoided by introducing "Chaos" - wide areas of the world, esp. in Africa, where the governments change every few months and the borders every few years.

* ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'' takes place on the planet of Remnant. There are four kingdoms - Vale, Vacuo, Atlas, and Mistral - on three continents. There are also a few other landmasses, such as the continent of Menagerie and the island of Vytal.
** {{Justified}} due to the ever-present threat of Grimm, who will invariably attack any settlement without extensive and expensive protections. Even just building new cities requires several times the amount of resources than normal, and still fails ninety percent of the time.

* ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'' and its sequel ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra'' take place in a universe where there are four nations spread about the planet: Fire Nation, Air Nomads, Earth Nation, and Water Tribe. The Water Tribe occupates two different regions, the North and South Poles, as well as the small Foggy Swamp Tribe in the Earth Nation. The all-but-extinct Air Nomads were traditionally nomadic, though they had four temples that acted as their central bases.

* The Earth of ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamIronBloodedOrphans'' is divided between four power blocs - Arbrau (which comprises Russia, Alaska and Canada), the Strategic Alliance Union (which comprises the rest of North America, Central America and South America), the African Union (which comprises Africa, Europe and the Middle East) and the Oceanian Federation (which comprises East Asia, South Asia, Australia and the Oceanian geographic region). Of the four, only Arbrau and the SAU play any role in the plot.
* In ''Anime/CodeGeass'', the world is divided into three main superpowers; [[UnitedEurope Europia United]] (all of Europe, Russia, and most of Africa) the [[UsefulNotes/TheBritishEmpire Holy Britannian Empire]] (North and South America, Parts of Africa, most of the Pacific) and the [[ChinaTakesOverTheWorld Chinese Federation]] (East, South and Central Asia, including Indonesia and India). There is also Japan (independent, but invaded by Britannia in the opening of the first episode) and the [[MiddleEasternCoalition Middle-Eastern Federation]] (taken by Britannia in the first season). Australia is the only one to stay uninvolved for the entire series. Predictably, almost all of the important events [[CreatorProvincialism take place in Japan]]. It's entirely lampshaded near the last third of the series, when the BigBad, the Emperor of the Holy Britannian Empire, mocks the protagonists forming TheFederation to stop him: in his opinion, all the protagonists have done is allow the world to easily distinguish one faction from the other on a map.
* ''Anime/MobileSuitGundam00'' has the world largely split into three power blocs, at least in the first season: The World Economic Union (the Americas, Australasia, and Japan, dominated by the United States. Also known as The Union Of Free Nations And Solar Energy, or just Union); the Human Reform League (Russia, China, India, most of the rest of South, Southeast, and East Asia except for Japan, dominated by China. Often abbreviated to HRL in-universe); and the Advanced European Union (current-day EU plus Turkey and Israel/Palestine. Often abbreviated to AEU in-universe).
* ''Literature/HeavyObject'' has the Legitimacy Kingdom, the Capitalist Corporation, the Information alliance and the Faith Organization. Unique in that location has no bearing on which country belongs to which group meaning there are constant skirmishes between neighbouring countries belonging to different groups.
* ''Anime/ValvraveTheLiberator'': The militaristic neo-Prussian Dorssian Military Alliance controls Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Russia. The nominally democratic ARUS controls the Americas. Western Europe, and the western half of Africa. They both run significant areas of the DysonSphere where most of humanity now lives.
* In ''Manga/FushigiYuugi'', the Universe of TheFourGods is divided along the cardinal compass points into four main empires, each with its own god, Seishi, climate, Shinzaho, scrolls, and priestess. Konan is in the South and worships Suzaku, Kutou is in the East and worships Seiryuu, Hokkan is in the North and worships Genbu, and Sairou is in the West and worships Byakko.

* In ''Comicbook/AmericanFlagg'', the Plex represents the former governments of the USA and USSR, but (particularly since the Plex seems to be largely abandoning Earth for its Mars-based "temporary" headquarters), the world's true superpowers are now the fascist Brazilian Union of the Americas and the communist Pan-African League, which has also conquered Italy.

* ''Fanfic/{{Worldfall}}'' is all over the place with this in the epilogue with the post-war power blocs -- Russia, renamed the Eurasian Federation, absorbs all of its Soviet era territory (minus East Germany) plus Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran; the rest of Europe becomes UnitedEurope; China absorbs most of mainland East Asia; India expands to absorb much of the remaining Middle East; Egypt and Sudan (except Darfur, which secedes as a free state) unite as the Nile Republic; the rest of North Africa becomes the nation of Sahara; what's left of the continent becomes the African Confederacy; and in the most JustForFun/{{egregious}} example, [[ExpandedStatesOfAmerica the United States expands]] to include pretty much the whole Western Hemisphere, becoming the United States of ''the'' America'''s'''. [[FlyoverCountry No mention is made of the Pacific nations.]]

* The film ''Film/BattleBeyondTheSun'', being an edited translation of the Soviet sci-fi movie ''Nebo Zovyot'' invented two of these to hide the fact that the race to Mars being depicted was really the Soviet Union and America, with the Americans naturally being painted in a bad light. The setting is moved to a post-nuclear war future (complete with obligatory StockFootage of UsefulNotes/TheDeadliestMushroom) and has a map showing the two nations: North Hemis (present-day US, Canada, the former Soviet bloc and much of Central Europe) and South Hemis (basically everywhere else). This has the advantage of making both the Americans ''and'' Russians as the antagonists and conveniently allowing all the Russian characters to have Anglicized names (yet weirdly, American-sounding accents rather than Antipodean ones).

* The best-known example is ''Literature/NineteenEightyFour'': The world consists of just three super-states -- Oceania (the Americas, the British Isles, Australia, and Southern Africa), [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Eurasia and Eastasia]] -- and the 'disputed territories'. The latter (Africa from the Congo to the Mediterranean, the Middle East, India, Southeast Asia, the polar regions, and the Pacific islands) is a permanent buffer zone with control of various regions constantly shifting between the nearest pair of super-states, and where the three powers wage endless war against each other so as to divert resources and attention away from domestic problems. Alliances constantly shift so no side gains an advantage, but officially [[InternalRetcon Oceania has always been at war with whoever they're currently fighting]].

* Very early in its existence, the [[Creator/{{Syfy}} Sci Fi Channel]] produced a daily short series called ''Series/FTLNewsfeed'' in which the Earth of 150 years in the future has consolidated into six super-states:

[[folder:Real Life]]
* In real life this is often a side effect of the longstanding desire to TakeOverTheWorld. Since most political governments want to be as powerful as possible and somewhat understandably conclude the ability to control more territory, resources, and people as making them powerful, many rulers would focus on conquering or obtaining the submission of as many places and their people as possible. This is particularly evident in antiquity, where the idea of universal rulership was much stronger and diplomacy generally weaker, not helped by a fair few people aspiring to be GodEmperor. And a lot of times this works.... until the empire in question reaches the limits of what its politics, technology, and infrastructure can allow, at which point it usually starts to struggle to keep itself together. Precisely because it turns out that there are more things to power than simply "painting the map."
* The World a few years before UsefulNotes/WorldWarI. Not only had large parts of the World been conquered by a small number of colonial empires, but also for the [[UsefulNotes/{{Austria}} Austro]]-[[UsefulNotes/{{Hungary}} Hungarian]], the [[UsefulNotes/DynastiesFromShangToQing Chinese]], the [[UsefulNotes/ImperialGermany German]], the [[UsefulNotes/{{Turkey}} Ottoman]] and the [[UsefulNotes/TsaristRussia Russian]] Empires, all much larger than each of their corresponding modern successor states and each including territories, which today are separate independent states. The Chinese Empire, however, had already disintegrated before the start of the war in the 1911 Xinhai Revolution, and many others would follow after it.
* UsefulNotes/ImperialJapan did this in Asia. Before UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, it already had Korea and a chunk of China. During the war, it gobbled up the rest of China and most of Southeast Asia (Thailand was part of the Axis, so it didn't get conquered). Unsurprisingly, after the war, it lost everything sans the homeland.
* Europe after World War II. Most countries were allied with (or {{Puppet State}}s of) either UsefulNotes/TheUnitedStates or UsefulNotes/SovietRussiaUkraineAndSoOn.
** Josip Broz Tito attempted to create something similar to this in the Balkans during the Greek civil war by making a Yugoslav, Bulgarian, Greek and Albanian Communist union. Stalin, already in charge of the world's largest space filling empire, could not tolerate such a threat even from another communist nation. This led to the Tito-Stalin split.
* Although they've lost some of their Imperial and Cold War influence, China, Russia and the USA may still be these depending on who you ask. Size aside, the fact that the autonomous regions and states of Russia, USA and China can act as if they were a nation at times supports this.
* Several nations today are composed of many disparate parts, often unified more for the convenience of colonizers or past empires than any strong shared history. This is basically the norm for the Americas, Africa, and a large chunk of Asia. Not only were large sections carved out by the colonizers, as mentioned above, a lot of them have then gone on to gobble up more territory after gaining independence and nearly all have tried to.
** UsefulNotes/{{Indonesia}}. It is as large and diverse as the entire continent of Europe, but it's just a single country, and it's an archipelago instead of a continent. There ''is'' [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majapahit a historical precolonial precedent]] for its size, but most historians agree that, outside of Java, the territories' inclusion to the state amounted to nothing more than nominal tributes and it's basically thanks to UsefulNotes/TheNetherlands that it was ''de facto'' unified. Even today, the country is still host to more than 600 ethnic groups who have little in common with each other and is why unity (in the face of unimaginable diversity) is emphasized multiple times in the country's constitution.
** The UsefulNotes/{{Philippines}} is pretty much only one nation because the Spanish grouped it under one name (which itself only referred to the Samar and Leyte Island groups). No one polity had unified a significant fraction of it before, and some southern islands in particular have sustained agitation for separation from the rest of the archipelago for centuries on the basis of religion.
** [[UsefulNotes/TheRaj British India]] itself was kinda this (even without the obvious fact that it was part of the British Empire). Barring the fact that it got [[UsefulNotes/ThePartitionOfIndia partitioned into five different countries after independence]], the Indian subcontinent is a very diverse place, with hundreds of ethnic groups abounding. Although Indian unity is an old concept,[[note]]Though no entity ever fully unified the subcontinent until the British Raj--and even the Raj didn't technically manage it, since they allowed the Portuguese and French to keep their Indian colonies--a few came close, particularly the Mauryas and Moghuls, and it's clear that many conquerors had unification as a goal.[[/note]] the country is not nearly as homogeneous as, say, China.
** Large nations in the Americas like Brazil, the US, Mexico, and Canada were previously dozens or hundreds of languages, cultures, and nations before colonial powers arrived and filled it all in. In the US in particular, the status of many federally recognized tribes as dependent nation on non contiguous reservations lends itself to an impression of the US as what fills in all the space between the reservations Native Americans were forced on to. Hell, the United States itself takes up a third of North America.
* In a very dark example, this was the ultimate goal of UsefulNotes/NaziGermany during Operation Barbarossa as driven by the ultranationalist ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drang_nach_Osten Drang nach Osten]]'' (Drive to the East) ideal: to conquer all the Slavic countries of Eastern Europe plus Western Russia, and in doing so create a [[TheEmpire Greater Germanic Reich]] full of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebensraum Lebensraum]] (living space) for the German people. [[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0b/Greater_Germanic_Reich.png You can see the proposed boundaries for such a Reich here]]. Naturally, the Slavic peoples already living in those territories would have to be... [[FinalSolution disposed of]].
* From about 50 AD through about 200 AD, it would've been possible to go from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean while basically only crossing through four empires. From west to east, you would start in UsefulNotes/TheRomanEmpire and make your way through [[{{UsefulNotes/Iran}} the Parthian Empire]] to the [[UsefulNotes/{{India}} Kushan Empire]] before ending up in [[UsefulNotes/DynastiesFromShangToQing Han Dynasty China]].
* An OlderThanFeudalism example: in its largest extent, UsefulNotes/TheAchaemenidEmpire spanned from Northern Greece in the northwest, Crimea in the north, Egypt in the southwest, Transoxiana in the northeast, and the Indus River in the southeast and incorporated an extremely diverse population for its time, including Persians, Bactrians, Indians, Babylonians, Arameans, Jews, Arabs, Egyptians, Lydians, and Greeks. As one historian put it, it was a Roman Empire [[UrExample before there was even]] ''[[UrExample a]]'' [[UrExample Roman Empire]].
* Most steppe-based nomadic empires were this.
** The Xiongnu confederation is an OlderThanFeudalism example, ruling the Eurasian Steppe in the 2nd century BCE. Until the era of the Caliphates, it was the largest state in history.
** The 13th century-era Mongol Empire stretched from the Danube in the west all the way to the Pacific Ocean in the east. With the exception of India, Japan, and parts of Southeast Asia, ''all'' Asians were subject to it. It's the second-largest empire and the largest contiguous empire in history. However, like its nomadic predecessors and successors, it didn't last very long.
* The earliest Muslim caliphates were some of the largest empires in history. The Umayyad Caliphate, for instance, stretched from present-day Pakistan to Spain, a distance of about 7,500 km, mostly land area. None of its successors were able to equal (let alone surpass) it in terms of area.
* And depending on how you define an "empire", the Cold War and the resulting hegemony of the United States basically counts. Prior to 1991 the entire world was basically split between two distinct power blocs, and after the fall of the Soviet Union there was now only one power left on Earth.
[[/folder]]

* The best-known example is ''Literature/NineteenEightyFour'': The world consists of just three super-states -- Oceania (the Americas, the British Isles, Australia, and Southern Africa), [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Eurasia and Eastasia]] -- and the 'disputed territories'. The latter (Africa from the Congo to the Mediterranean, the Middle East, India, Southeast Asia, the polar regions, and the Pacific islands) is a permanent buffer zone with control of various regions constantly shifting between the nearest pair of super-states, and where the three powers wage endless war against each other so as to divert resources and attention away from domestic problems. Alliances constantly shift so no side gains an advantage, but officially [[InternalRetcon Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia]]. The "three massive nations" setup may be an UnbuiltTrope; [[UnreliableNarrator it's unclear]], both in-universe to the protagonists and to readers of the book itself, whether all this is fact or propaganda. [[OneWorldOrder Oceania might truly control the entire world]] but [[FalseFlagOperation frequently attack itself to keep its citizens miserable]], Oceania might be a horribly-repressive-but-externally-weak state that frequently attacks itself to keep its citizens cowed, or 'Oceania' might have control of much less territory than it claims.

** In one PVPBalanced designed-for-multiplayer scenario in ''VideoGame/HeartsOfIronII: Armageddon'', the world is divided equally between 18 great powers that each control an equal share of the globe. [[AlternateHistory Due to a certain surrealism of the scenario's backstory]], variations of the events of the campaign itself can be quite different. For example, it is possible that the Russian Empire will oppose the Cossack Union or the CSA will fight against Red Japan (People's Republic of the Rising Sun).

** In one PVPBalanced designed-for-multiplayer scenario in ''VideoGame/HeartsOfIronII: Armageddon'', the world is divided equally between 18 great powers that each control an equal share of the globe. [[AlternateHistory Due to the certain surrealism of the scenario's backstory]], variations of the events of the campaign itself can be quite different. For example, it is possible that the Russian Empire will oppose the Cossack Union or the CSA will fight against Red Japan (People's Republic of the Rising Sun).