Empire1565 – 1898 · 333 years
Spanish East Indies (Philippines)
The empire that began with Columbus and brought the Western Hemisphere into the global economy — at staggering human cost.
What it was
The Spanish Empire (1492–1898) was the first global empire, with possessions on every inhabited continent. American silver from Potosí and Zacatecas funded Spanish hegemony in 16th-century Europe and the first truly global trade network linking Manila, Acapulco, and Seville.
Why it mattered
The demographic catastrophe of the conquest killed an estimated 90% of Indigenous Americans within a century — one of the largest population collapses in human history.
From Wikipedia
The Spanish East Indies were the colonies of the Spanish Empire in Asia and Oceania from 1565 to 1901, governed through the captaincy general in Manila for the Spanish Crown, initially reporting to Mexico City, then later directly reporting to Madrid after the Spanish American Wars of Independence.
Wikipedia: Spanish East Indies·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
- SNAPSHOT1800
- POLITY TYPEstate
Also during this period
No conflict record yet names this polity as a belligerent; these overlap its dates only.
- Taiping Rebellion1850–64World-changing · 30M dead
- Thirty Years' War1618–48World-changing · 8.0M dead
- Portuguese Conquest of Brazil1500–1750World-changing · 5.0M dead
- American Indian Wars1500–1800World-changing · 5.0M dead
- Qing Conquest of Ming China1618–83World-changing · 5.0M dead
- French Wars of Religion1562–98World-changing · 4.0M dead
Open in the atlas →Seeks the timeline to 1565 and fits the map to these borders.
Cite as: Spanish East Indies (Philippines) (1565 – 1898). War Atlas. https://waratlas.org/e/spanish-philippines · Sources & methodology