THE POWER ATLAS
Who ruled the world, year by year.
Every state ranked by national power against its rivals, for each year since 1500.
Part of The Time MachineThe headline hegemony-aware index.
Superpower
1
Great Power
1
Middle Power
10
Regional
15
Minor
209
Power share of world power, the major players
1500 – 2026The recognition gap, 2026
who the world under- or over-ratesUnder-recognised
Punching above its mass
Hegemony-aware CINC v6 + Maddison 2023 + reach; 1500-1815 benchmark-interpolated (Maddison benchmarks + curated military/reach overlays incl. Napoleonic keyframes, wide error bars); 1816-1859 sovereign non-CINC states (Qing, Japan, Persia, fading Maratha/Mughal) glide-injected into the CINC pool; 1990-2026 blended into the country score (exact 2026). LATENT = material mass; RECOGNIZED = spending + productive economy + reach + curated status (P5 seat, nuclear, Concert recognition, bloc leadership). Tiers are relative to each year’s leader. Latent and recognised sub-indices are computed from 1816; the Power lens runs from 1500 on benchmark-interpolated estimates with wide error bars.
About this page
A single index of national power, computed for every state from 1500 to today and ranked against its contemporaries. Drag the slider and watch the tiers shift: Britain alone atop the 19th century, the crowded great-power table of 1900, the US and USSR splitting the Cold War world, and the present day.