Top 10 Largest Armies in the World (1816-2021)

Which countries have the largest military? This animation video will compare the top 10 largest armies in the world from 1816 to 2021 by active military personnel. To a large extent, the size of a country's army plays a role in the power of its military. During times of war, a country will increase the spending of its military and the size of its military. This pattern has been seen for centuries. Russo-Japanese War, American Civil War, Russian Civil War, Chinese Civil War, WW1, WW2, Vietnam War - during all of these times, either through additional government allocation or through drafting, the countries at war would increase their military sizes.
Watch on and take an adventure through centuries of history and wars to witness the size and scale of the top 10 largest armies in the world from 1816 to today.
Datasources: Our World In Data, Worldpopulationview, The Correlates of War Project, Stastica, Wikipedia
Music: Hearts of Iron 4

[@RankingCharts]

We are so close to hitting 50k on this channel! I wanted to upload a particularly lengthy and, in my opinion, exciting video to thank everyone. This video will compare the top 10 largest armies in the world from 1816 to 2021. Be sure to like, comment, and subscribe! Enjoy!

[@behzad4962]

Are you getting monetized for your content?

[@christianbryan6961]

Yo I like the music you used, what is it?

[@matthewdrews]

Congrats on 50k (and then some)!

[@fredassalino2399]

err⁴4⁴⁴⁴ m.j

[@bobflendorg1064]

You left out the Confederate army estimated at 750,000 to 1,000,000 strong between 1861 and 1865.

[@christophmoser2798]

Austria 200 years ago: 2. largest country in Europe, 2. largest army in the world Austria today: People think kangaroos live there.

[@kenney1050]

U talking abt Austria no kangaroos there or Australia? where kangaroos live.

[@doenermitallem]

@@kenney1050 You got the point.

[@emilerhard4189]

@@kenney1050 😂

[@antonyroberts4892]

he he

[@Keifsanderson]

Are you from Austria? "Let's put another shrimp on the barbie."

[@mbathroom1]

Sudden Increases: 1:02: Egyptian-Ottoman War (1839-1841) 1:39: Crimean War 1:59: American Civil War 2:05: January Uprising 2:24: Franco-Prussian War 2:43: Russo-Turkish War (1877-1878) 4:16: Second Balkan War 4:21: World War I 4:31: Russian Civil War 5:14: Second Italo-Ethiopian War 5:27: World War II 5:56: Korean War

[@Prash1c]

Awesome thanks! :)

[@sourweed9818]

Egypt actually was a province of Ottoman Empire. The governor rebelled againist empire.

[@mbathroom1]

@Adora Tsang there was no increase though

[@alonglongchannel]

Taiping rebellion (Chinese Civil War) largest war casualties and total death after ww2

[@mbathroom1]

@@alonglongchannel indeed but it was a civil war

[@PurpleObscuration]

This reminds me of what my girlfriend tells me, it's not about size, what really matters is quality

[@soumit123]

Coz your country is not in the list😂😂😂

[@Barack_Obama_Gayming]

@@soumit123 you didn't understand the joke

[@Shxbhh]

Lmfao.

[@gababa4286]

@@soumit123 It aint about countries tho...

[@soumit123]

@@gababa4286 yeah I got it bro😂😂😂

[@52flyingbicycles]

When a military shrinks during peace: oh cool they are cooling off tensions When a military shrinks during war: oh… oh no

[@816Li]

Vietnam war is that

[@alexzero3736]

Russia in WW1 : Bodies to the slaughter!

[@OFinn77]

​@816Li That's not the comparison he was using. The vietnam war lost troops because troops didn't want to go over to fight. Also there was a ton of draft dodgers for good reason.

[@timchen9263]

1M army of Qing came out of nowhere made me laugh

[@RankingCharts]

That’s where the dataset started to report the figures for China.

[@carterzeng5756]

Because Qing Government annonced they have "百万大军" (1M soldiers), and nobody want to caculate how many they are. LOL.

[@bonjouraurevoir7891]

@@carterzeng5756 agree

[@blockTay]

Qing dynasty did come and go rather fast

[@boyiyelcham2630]

@@RankingCharts oh I see

[@noahengelstad1253]

Keep making those high-quality videos!

[@ellasmommy9278]

I really like these animated charts. Thank you so much for uploading them. And probably creating them

[@ArtStoneUS]

It would be interesting to have the same graph showing the percentage of the population that was in the active military

[@vik24oct1991]

north korea would be your winner without any competition.

[@cdjhyoung]

@@vik24oct1991 If it was graphed by percentage of population, Israel might be in the running for the highest percentage of their population in the military.

[@newandoldtech5634]

@@vik24oct1991 or sweden. At the height of the cold war, they could draft half to three quarters of a millon (5-8 million in population, count away half as they are women)

[@captainvanisher988]

@@newandoldtech5634 In Greece every abled male is required to join and serve in the military for 9-12 months (used to be up to 2 years) and it has been that way since our civil war from what I know. Meaning that at least 80+% of age men in Greece have been active military personel at some point in their lives.

[@its_dey_mate]

@@vik24oct1991 Now maybe, but before there would be competition, say during the dawn of the 20th century Bulgaria had maybe 5-6 million population and 1 million military ready soldiers. Thats just one example.

[@impyboi9788]

Viewing data sets like this can really put some things into perspective

[@jim9660]

Keep up this great content!

[@xxwilsonxx473]

Awesome music and awesome video!

[@MrHel-hf3nk]

Amazing video as always!

[@josiahgibbs5697]

The US Civil War was pretty amazing about how quickly the numbers grew and then how quickly they subsided.

[@wadehampton1737]

What happened to the Confederate numbers?

[@keldonmcfarland2969]

​@@wadehampton1737 I think both the Union and the Confederacy were added together.

[@mammajamma4397]

Well, a lot of those guys were killed in the war. Like, A LOT.

[@n.d.4192]

@@wadehampton1737 Combined I suppose but the Union had a much larger army

[@austinscholz963]

@@keldonmcfarland2969 no both it was a lot more

[@tomsmith2587]

Amazing stuff!

[@BS-vx8dg]

It's a shame this doesn't go back to the 1780s. Would love to see France's Army during the Revolution and the Napoleonic era.

[@simonpaynter8765]

I wish they started at 1805 as I would like to have seen how large Napoleons Grand Army would have been at different stages of the Napoleonic Wars.

[@wesleyjaskulsky9414]

Although i cannot give the exact number for each year of the strenthg of Napoleon's Grande Armee the highest peak of military came at about 600.000 men with half of the force French troops and the rest from conquered, allied and sattelite states of the French Empire, this had to do with the Invasion of Russia in 1812.

[@ronniecoleman2342]

The French Army alone was well over 1 million in 1812 with troops from Spain to Russia.

[@sylviahuitson8309]

Fantastic presentation. Thanks

[@willo7979]

Great vid thanks! Thanks!

[@Light-jk3ui]

Every time Germany tops the charts , the world war happens 😂

[@blackphantom3741]

And know we have one of the smallest and unpracticed army’s 😂

[@MsDebbie0611]

China will be new nazis from Asia, they believe they already won, “eastern raising and western falling” they said ☹️

[@ULTRAVELVET3]

@@Light-jk3uican only assume he’s talking about Germany

[@richard35791]

@@MsDebbie0611 nope, you are deluded

[@user-to8yx5vv2x]

@@MsDebbie0611 so,you even don't know what is nazis?

[@c.w.9501]

It would be neat to see this video overlayed with military machinery and/or weapons. Some nations may reduce the numbers as they get better machines/weapons that make each enlisted soldier more effective.

[@Narsuitus]

Thanks for an excellent video.

[@marianamarquez7583]

Yay!! Good job!

[@MichaelKlineJr]

I have a challenge for you, if you can develop the tech to do it. Do a timelines as map pings/circles. I personally would like to see one outlining the creation and proliferation of the banking systems by association.

[@harrygray7463]

Fascinating video but so much war is depressing 😢

[@Sandro-ij7te]

Amazing Music I feel I am at War. Great Video too 💥💥💥

[@eaphantom9214]

Ah-10 Hut! At ease! The list will be made all the more easier to wrap your head around! 😁👍 I like the background music 🎶🎶

[@thecrazypuppet]

Bravo

[@Halbared]

I had to look up the Russian flag change, I never knew that. Great detail.

[@johannesnicolaas]

Very instructive. Thank you so much. A dutch historian.

[@normdyer94]

VERY educational. You can see the build ups for war. It would be helpful to add a light in each bar showing when a country was at war.

[@LG-yi2vh]

Which programming language and framework do you use? Is there any open source code? Awesome visualization!

[@thomashughes7336]

You can do this in python with some pandas installed :)

[@DavidLodgeclassof]

When you realize how much smaller Prussia was than it's contenders, you realize why it's called "an army with a state."

[@carllawler2837]

Interesting video...

[@sparkysmalarkey]

These are fun to watch. Thank you.

[@Aaronnnnnn]

Gotta love Hearts of Iron music

[@mrow7598]

I would be interesting to see these armies with a list of wars if any and seeing how the graph changes.

[@vivremaintenant841]

A la venue des nazies cela est flagrant🤮 Mais il est évident que la France a toujours gardé une armée puissante jusqu'au début des années 80...ensuite l'U.E et l'OTAN l'ont déconstruire😞

[@avejoe]

Outstanding!

[@raoulcaliente1030]

Remarkable.

[@Alex-cz4dy]

Can u do national debt

[@curtisaguinaga7021]

The civil war bit, really was a foreshadow of what the US would eventually become

[@crazychase98]

Also foreshadowed how both world wars would be fought and trench warfare. Grant is the grandfather of modern combat and siege tactics are done . the american civil war was the first real mechanized war

[@thesilentone3251]

Here before 100k

[@Mojo32]

This is a very interesting graphic.

[@delphinia4433]

Bulgaria does quite a sprint during every war,for then 5-6 mil people,800 thousand people is impressive l think.

[@jameswolf133]

Would have been interesting to see the major rebel factions like the Confederate States, Spanish Republicans (or Nationalists, depending on your perspective) and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.

[@Premyy.M]

Interesting seeing how static the numbers are at times

[@sethrockwood]

I would like to see this graph overlayed with the wars that each nation was involved in during those timeframes

[@user-du4gn5th7k]

Yes, that's a great idea! Some countries are engaged in multiple wars with multiple countries over a period of time

[@steveboy3021002]

This video really shows the diff between conscription and volunteers. If you look at the massive armies that fought significantly smaller volunteer armies that lost its pretty clear that conscription doesn't work well.

[@AwoudeX]

conscription works well if all else is rougly the same and if you don't use the draft, you're outmanned. however when you look at firepower, morale, logistics, leadership being better with a professional army with a superior economy, then for sure just conscription is not going to win it for you by default. Superior manpower then becomes useless.

[@zlonewolf]

@Awoudex Russia during ww2: hehe soldiers printing machine go brrrrrrhhrr!

[@dickodeed]

Very interesting.Particularly seeing how my country faired throughout time

[@DieFlabbergast]

*fared

[@csnide6702]

really interesting......

[@robinlandry518]

Interesting

[@ThemrGhost1905]

Hi! Please add symbols which show dynamic (value is increasing or decreasing) of value, for example arrows with different directions - up or down.

[@russelanderson9437]

"Hey Qing is your internet working" "Yeah I'll be on in just a sec...there we go...oh darnit my laptop froze my army is stuck"

[@melaniem5971]

Beautifully done! Like watching a horse race…

[@markyanh6630]

Good

[@LouisPog]

idk if theres a way to really do this, but a chart of major inventions from each country would be cool. I'm from scotland and I know scottish inventors have created an insane amount of things relative to the small population. would love to see that chart if theres a way to get the data

[@phaasch]

Scottish ingenuity, coupled with English investment capital and entrepreneurship. It was a world beating formula.

[@LynxSouth]

I read a few years ago that per capita, Scotland has the highest number of patents of any country ever. As someone with significant Scottish ancestry, I'm pleased but not surprised. I'd love to see charts about inventions and patents, too.

[@c.w.9501]

I don't care how many things Scotland has invented. You invented golf and that's good enough to keep you on the top of the charts forever as far as I'm concerned.

[@josephwalsh7546]

It was interesting to see Ethiopia repeatedly pop up on the list.

[@herbertfawcett7213]

EWould have been neat if you could keep your focus!

[@Brooksforlife]

My country denmark was in for like 6 seconds goob vid

[@Bluesonofman]

The fact the US mobilized as much as the Qing just to fight it’s self in the 1860s should show you how much of a threat the US was to European Hegemony if something changed in the timeline.

[@marcellogenesi6390]

Italy as a nation did not exist until 1861

[@Bluesonofman]

@@marcellogenesi6390 What does that have to do with anything

[@wifi961]

@@marcellogenesi6390 😮

[@daboy12s]

no threat at all, they didnt have a Navy

[@richardking9703]

@@Bluesonofmantry thinking maybe .

[@lijiayi0921]

1:57 QING : 1,000,000 soldiers coming from no where

[@vik24oct1991]

lack of data I guess.

[@RapinatorOhYeah]

5:28 Switzerland just upping it's conscription to that *JUST INCASE*

[@levitation1763]

*Good pitch colleague. Have the same content, but in a different form.*

[@mattleofric1766]

"In warfare, numbers alone confer to no advantage." -Sun Tzu

[@DominikRoost]

A large enough quantity replaces quality. - Stalin

[@mattleofric1766]

@@DominikRoost "Ten soldiers wisely led is better than 100 without a head." -Unknown

[@handleonafridge6828]

@@mattleofric1766”which would you rather fight? 1 horse sized duck or 100 duck sized horses?” - somebody

[@edwardhochwand9063]

Could you make a chart about top 10 countries who eliminated most native people in the world?

[@ashajacob8362]

Britain will come first

[@atulshukla8473]

Britain offcourse on the top

[@superdude4635]

OMG…I spend an hour watching your channel. I supposed to watch a movie with wife..this is addictive to me. Weird right. Lol

[@daxboi731]

It would be Nice if you showed wars so we know why a country has buffed up its military

[@Maplelust]

that US climb in 1941. just.. incredible! 😯

[@Michael-cf9cj]

And to think the US also built all the equipment necessary for all those men to fight effectively and to get them to the fight, while fighting on two fronts, and at least at first at a disadvantage on both fronts.

[@Maplelust]

@@Michael-cf9cj wooow. amazing.

[@beorlingo]

Uncle Sam is such an authority.

[@gregolson3216]

I don't give a fuck what anyone says. Go USA forever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@matthewdrews]

Seeing the United States jump on the charts from 1861 to 1865 gave me goosebumps.

[@ogan2631]

Why

[@richard35791]

its obvious fucking civil war duh

[@marshalmitherz3352]

@@ogan2631 it was herpes

[@beckyweiss6072]

It shows how fucking *brutal* the Civil War was.

[@marshalmitherz3352]

@@beckyweiss6072 100,000s of white people died for slavery to be over so I don't know why we all hate each other if you knew that. Gov makes races hate each other on purpose I swear. What's with the plantations in the south still where 74% of the black men are serving life to run it. Shits crazy AF to me. There's other ways nowadays to run a state than that shit! I'm random AF sorry

[@KartovOndulevitch]

does the music after 6'20" have a particular name ? Love it

[@businesshub66]

I come here every day somehow to love view contents & videos

[@criticaltheories5222]

For Korea and Taiwan to be in the top 10 must have been a massive effort during the 60s

[@rubylee5754]

Taiwan's military at that time was China's army in exile, read more history

[@criticaltheories5222]

@@rubylee5754 Fun Fact: Taiwan 🇹🇼 has never been a part of China.

[@rubylee5754]

@@criticaltheories5222 Taiwan has never been a country, did you go to the United Nations to recognize it yourself? This stupid point of view can only reflect your ignorance and arrogance, without history and culture, please read more books?ok？？ The mentally retarded who watch the BBC every day。 Taiwan is part of China

[@criticaltheories5222]

@@rubylee5754 historically NEVER has Taiwan 🇹🇼 been a part the CCP-s China.

[@rubylee5754]

@@criticaltheories5222 Turns out I was talking to an ignorant unread kid, so be it, bye傻逼

[@johnmchugh4559]

Can we have access to the underlying data or at least an understand of the sources?

[@juleskain3905]

Also, army spending by GDP or active military PER Capita would be interesting to see.

[@theforerunner5586]

1941, pearl harbor attack America: And I...took that personally

[@grantp4022]

Today, it is not how many soldiers you have, but how many sophisticated weapons you have at your disposal. One weapon ( bomb ) can kill hundreds of thousands. It's all about intelligence and proper deployment of what you have. Great Britain colonized 1/4 of the world with one of the smallest militaries.

[@DieFlabbergast]

True, but don't forget that, for Britain, the primary arm of both defence and offence was not the army, but the navy. Personnel numbers do not accurately show the amount of money spent on naval power: most of it goes into the ships, the docks, etc.

[@LRomano]

It's true we Italian / Roman Empire killed an immortal being just with normal iron strategy is everything 👍

[@cdjhyoung]

But Britain had the world's largest Navy at the time, and an even larger merchant fleet to carry away the spoils of colonialism.

[@leonelgaldinomonteiro4783]

Portugal too.

[@Halbared]

The British empire worked more as a business than other traditional empires. It;s why it was more successful and took less lives as it dissolved. Fewer soldiers needed when locals were paid to get onside and jump on the commerce train. The natural evolution from that are the empires of the US and China today.

[@martinmouncher9825]

Not even in the top 10 in the 80s but the British military still committed to its territories back then... and making a presence to a well known terrorist group (I would know, I was there) Also a certain South American country and holding the line in Germany. Not forgetting posts in the far East, Mediterranean and Central America.

[@derslicerdeicer341]

Quality over Quantity!

[@robstarr6817]

I like these videos. I wish they authors would take more care in their color choices. Yellow graph bar with white background and small font? Hard to read.

[@RankingCharts]

Thanks for the feedback. And, yes, a lot of people have been bringing this up. I’ll definitely keep that in mind!

[@jamiewomack]

A follow-up video to show these same numbers, but compared to the population of these countries would be interesting. Active military personnel per capita would show how richer countries have the money for large armies vs poorer countries that have vastly larger populations.

[@judgemcnugget7110]

North Korea would likely be number one for almost all of the time since Kim Il Sung...

[@drba77]

The numbers in 1944 and 1945 at the end of WWII are crazy

[@NickRoman]

Is that when the United States hit 11 million active personnel? The most of any country ever. Then, we're back to a little over 1 million. That was crazy.

[@joshdudeguy2830]

Most powerful militaries next. :)

[@juleskain3905]

Would be better if you showed major events when they occurred. This could be incorporated into the date display.

[@its_dey_mate]

Props to Bulgaria going to bloody fourth on this list at one point. There is a reason it was called the Balkan Prussia, the entire peninsula had to fight against it to win.

[@danzwku]

1:56 I'm Chinese and I was like what lol where have you been this whole time

[@atulshukla8473]

How can you use KZbin on chian

[@opxl-cp7rl]

@@atulshukla8473 Not all Chinese people live in China. 🧍‍♀️

[@caturion5453]

可能OP在1860以前沒有找到資料

[@nexodiumstarite7086]

What do they use to animate graphs like this?

[@Reichsritter]

Prussia just chilling for 30 years no biggy

[@steifan]

Surprised to see Sweden-Norway peeking above 11th position most of the 1800s :)

[@davidbowen5621]

What about crossing the info from this one with the info from the video about defense spending to see how much each country is spending per soldier per year

[@H4LF]

This makes me want to play civ

[@randallgriffith4589]

Missing the CSA during the American Civil War 1860-1865

[@Pidalin]

Czechoslovakia had more than milion men army before WWII when expecting German attack.

[@toncek9981]

Not in active service though and I guess that large army after 1938 mobilisation was just too short lived to appear in the video... BTW I'm personally more disappointed that the video doesn't distinguish between various forces in civil wars and counts them all into one (or doesn't mention the losing side?) - like USA vs CSA in 1860's or Russian and China during their civil wars...

[@salmon2470]

It's where this video sucks

[@TC-xv5cf]

I like how the US said bye have a good day 2:08

[@EvilHegemony]

With which programs u developments this static?

[@HassanKhan-ei2wh]

So qing dynasty just magically appear with 1 mil army one day?

[@C.A.P.F.]

Well these charts are, of course, mostly based on official records. So if the Qing Dynasty officially recorded an army size of 1M for several years then... that's what went into this video :D

[@Fargoleafy]

@@C.A.P.F. yeah. The soviet union stayed steady for like 2 decades because they were very "tight lipped"

[@greedyfox8968]

What program are you using to animate the data?

[@junjiezerocool3307]

US really was just chillin prior Pearl Harbor.

[@gerardopintos]

¡Hola! Podrían elaborar un gráfico que muestre los países con la cantidad de armas que disponen los ciudadanos para su uso civil.

[@andrethegiant2877]

The United States' military is fast becoming mechanized, meaning we don't need as many soldiers as we can basically destroy our enemies' infrastructure from above crippling basically any other country without the need for a massive army... which we also have.

[@csmth96]

9 army personnel in the US army are supporting 1 frontline combatant. They emphasize their logistics much more than armies of similar size. That is why they have a big army but their composition is very different.

[@smgdfcmfah]

@@csmth96 The US never gets enough credit for their ability to wage war anywhere in the world. Even in WW2 they were a large part of feeding not just the UK war machine, but even her people - plus the Soviet war machine PLUS their own war machine in North Africa, Italy AND France. And oh, and let's not forget that that was the easy part compared to waging a war thousands of miles away across the Pacific on various islands... at the same time! It's truly insane, if you think about it and it's why the US spends SO much on maintaining a navy that's more powerful than the rest of the world combined. This isn't even someone bragging because I'm not even American, just a history buff and former military man.

[@crazychase98]

@@smgdfcmfah Thats why china purely runs off of destabilization and subversion tactics. They need to weaken the us just enough for china to increase influence. An all out assault on the us is crazy and invasion without emps and nukes is off the table

[@olispagna5170]

👍👍👍👍👍