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

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

Keep making those high-quality videos!

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

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

Keep up this great content!

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

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

Amazing video as always!

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.

Awesome music and awesome video!

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

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.

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

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

Fantastic presentation. Thanks

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

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.

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

Thanks for an excellent video.

Amazing stuff!

Fascinating video but so much war is depressing 😢

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

Yay!! Good job!

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

Can u do national debt

Gotta love Hearts of Iron music

Great vid thanks! Thanks!

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.

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.

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

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

Bravo

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

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.

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

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

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

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

These are fun to watch. Thank you.

Here before 100k

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

Prussia just chilling for 30 years no biggy

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

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

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.

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

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

Outstanding!

"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"

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

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

With which programs u developments this static?

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.

As the caption says, these are active duty personnel only. When you add in reserves, these numbers can as much as double in size. But as Russia is currently leaning, an smaller number of highly motivated and well-trained troops with advanced weapons can make up for superior numbers.

Remarkable.

What do they use to animate graphs like this?

There were a number of things I found especially interesting: The rapid expansion and deflation of armies around the world wars and the American Civil War, how Sweden stayed in the top 10 for so long, and the Qing Dynasty having a million way before anyone else. I was wondering about the Qing number, because it did not fluctuate for long periods of time. Is that because there wasn't significantly reliable data, and the 1 million is an approximation?

The one million strong Qing army was merely nominal. Throughout the 19th century, the Qing Empire was basically occupied with foreign wars (mostly invasions by european powers), rebellions (white-lotus-cult rebellions, muslin rebellions, the christian-cult/taiping rebellion, the restoration movement for the former dynasty and the uprisings led by revolutionaries) and peasant wars(one of them was the tremendous Nian Jun/Army of Bands, an umberalla term for thousands of armed peasant bands that were active across the Central China from early 1850s to late 1860s, killed at least 100k Qing soldiers). All those above demanded and eliminated uncountable soldiers. It is hard to calculate their actual number of soldiers, since the Emperor might neither not know the accurate number at that time. Also, the military system changed and varied a lot during the time, which makes the thing even more complex. So, to be simple, we have no idea how many soldiers Qing deployed in its last decades, apart from the fact that it surely had many soldiers.

Interesting seeing how static the numbers are at times

Interesting video...

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.

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

This is a very interesting graphic.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

Very interesting.Particularly seeing how my country faired throughout time

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.

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

A list that the United States does not dominate with the exception of 1864-65' and 1942-45'.

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

Russia, The US and China just being like *strong* Germany every now and then: „Guten Tag Fräulein!“

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

Imagine there’s no war tomorrow, every where you go it’s nice and safe, no army needed, there’s no enemies, all these money would be spending for education, health, economies, there are no borders, anyone can go & live anywhere, What the life would that be… But that dream would never happen 😔

Watched an interview with a retired American general a couple days ago. He was asked about the Russia invasion and he said, "We over estimated the capabilities of the Russian military. We thought that because it was so big that it was good. Turns out there is just a lot of it".

EWould have been neat if you could keep your focus!

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

Grande império do Brasil, não aparecendo em quase nenhum momento do vídeo, que potência.

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

Love how the qing showed up, stayed at a fixed spot, refused to elaborate, and left.

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

It's impressive how well the UK have done considering they're tiny. Brave men.

If you count the militias in Iraq, then the count is 5M since 2006; literary everyone in Iraq is either soldier or militia

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

I'm just curious how do you track this

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.

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

Quality over Quantity!

My country denmark was in for like 6 seconds goob vid