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Might have one here, as a subtrope to The Empire
Can throw out an additional example, the Seanchan from The Wheel of Time: About a thousand years before the start of the books, The Conqueror Arthur Hawkwing sent his son west over the ocean to build his own empire, but were never heard from again. It was assumed the expedition failed, thus making the Seanchan invasion force that shows up looking to reclaim Hawkwing's lands rather unexpected. We see little of the Seanchan homelands themselves, but we learn quite a bit about the place and its culture indirectly, and their scarily efficient invasion plays a major part in the events of the books.
Edited by Scorpion451
Might be something in Left-Justified Fantasy Map.
On a map of a fictional setting that does not depict the entirety of the setting, there's an empire that controls some territory on the edge of the map. However, what you see of that empire on the map only represents their outermost territories - the majority of the empire is not on the map, and the true size of the empire may be larger than all the other countries on the map combined. Hordes from the East are often depicted this way, as are other "outsider" factions.
Examples:
- The Qunari from Dragon Age
- The Empire of Nilfgaard in The Witcher games
- Russia in the board game Diplomacy
- The Mongols in any strategy game about medieval Europe. (Crusader Kings, Total War: Medieval, etc.) In other strategy games set in Europe, Persia often ends up as one as well, since making the Urals the easternmost border splits Iran in half.