Empire843 CE – 1204 · 361 years
Byzantine Empire (843-1204)
The eastern half of the Roman Empire that quietly outlasted the western half by a thousand years.
What it was
Centered on Constantinople, Byzantium combined Roman law, Greek language, and Orthodox Christianity. It absorbed waves of Persian, Arab, Bulgar, and Turkish pressure for a millennium before finally falling to the Ottomans in 1453.
Why it mattered
It preserved classical Greek learning through the European Dark Ages and Christianized the Slavic world; the Cyrillic alphabet and Russian Orthodoxy are direct downstream consequences.
From Wikipedia
The Eastern Roman Empire, also known as the Byzantine Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD, it endured until the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453. The term 'Byzantine Empire' was coined only after its demise; its citizens used the term 'Roman Empire' and called themselves 'Romans'.
Wikipedia: Byzantine Empire·CC BY-SA 4.0
Borders & accuracy
Solid borders are reconstructed from canonical historical-basemap data or hand-crafted from scholarly atlases.
- SOURCEaourednik / historical-basemaps
- DETAILhistorical-basemaps (Ourednik)
- SNAPSHOT1000
- POLITY TYPEstate
Wars of this empire69
Conflicts whose belligerents name this polity, best-documented first.
- Seljuk-Byzantine Wars1064–1308Major conflict · 400K dead
- Seljuk Invasions of Anatolia1064–98Major conflict · 200K dead
- Major conflict · 100K dead
- Fourth Crusade1202–04Major conflict · 10K dead
- Major conflict
- Cumans-Byzantine Conflicts1050–1200Significant · 200K dead
- Significant · 100K dead
- Pechenegs Wars with Byzantium1064–1122Significant · 100K dead
- Significant · 50K dead
- Norman Conquest of Calabria1016–91Significant · 50K dead
- Siege of Bari1068–71Significant · 10K dead
- Byzantine–Norman wars1081–1185Significant
- Nicaean–Latin wars1204–64Significant
- Battle of Ostia849 CERegional
- Battle of Castrogiovanni859 CERegional
- Battle of Poson863 CERegional
- Battle of Bari871 CERegional
- Battle of Taormina902 CERegional
- Battle of Anchialus917 CERegional
- Battle of Aleppo962 CERegional
- Battle of Adana964 CERegional
- Battle of Tarsus965 CERegional
- Sviatoslav's invasion of Bulgaria967–971 CERegional
- Battle of Aleppo969 CERegional
+ 45 more in the atlas.
Open in the atlas →Seeks the timeline to 843 CE and fits the map to these borders.
Cite as: Byzantine Empire (843-1204) (843 CE – 1204). War Atlas. https://waratlas.org/e/byzantine-late-1025 · Sources & methodology