4500 years of Battles in 5 minutes
Man is an aggressive being. According to Wikipedia, there have been about 10,624 battles in the history of mankind. The animated map below shows the history of the wars in every battle.
The term “battle” referred to the meeting of two armies on a single battlefield and fought each other for anywhere from one to several days. The bloodiest battle in history is the battle of Changping that took place during the Warring States period in ancient China (260 BCE). Below is a ranking of the bloodiest battles in the history of mankind.
Top 20 bloodiest battles by casualties
| Rank | Battle | Year | War conflict | Casualties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Battle of Changping | 260 BCE | Qin’s wars of unification | 700,000 |
| 2 | Battle of Salsu | 612 | Goguryeo–Sui War | 302,300 |
| 3 | Battle of Kalinga | 262 BCE | Maurya Empire vs. the state of Kalinga | 250,000 |
| 4 | Tumu Crisis | 1449 | Ming–Mongol War | 200,000 |
| 5 | Battle of the Catalaunian Plains | 451 | Hunnic Invasion | 165,000 |
| 6 | Battle of Fei River | 383 | The war between Qin dynasty and the Eastern Jin dynasty | 150,000 |
| 7 | Battle of Nhu Nguyet river | 1077 | Lý–Song War | 150,000 |
| 8 | Battle of Kulikovo | 1380 | Mongol raids against Rus’ | 136,000 |
| 9 | Siege of Alesia | 52 BCE | Gallic Wars | 125,000 |
| 10 | Battle of Leipzig | 1813 | The Coalition of Austria, Prussia, Sweden, and Russia vs. French Emperor Napoleon I | 124,000 |
| 11 | Third Battle of Panipat | 1761 | Marathas vs. Afghans | 175,000 |
| 12 | Battle of Chamkaur | 1705 | Mughal-Sikh Wars | 112,500 |
| 13 | Battle of Red Cliffs | 208 | The Coalition of the southern warlords: Sun Quan, Liu Bei, and Liu Qi against the northern warlord Cao Cao | 100,000 |
| 14 | Battle of the Terek River | 1395 | Tokhtamysh–Timur war | 100,000 |
| 15 | Battle of Thymbra | 547 BCE | Lydian–Persian War | 100,000 |
| 16 | Battle of Yamen | 1279 | Mongol conquest of the Song dynasty | 100,000 |
| 17 | Conquest of Delhi | 1398 | Timur’s Indian campaign | 100,000 |
| 18 | Battle of Malplaquet | 1709 | War of the Spanish Succession | 95,000 |
| 19 | Battle of Gwiju | 1019 | Third conflict in the Goryeo–Khitan War | 90,000 |
| 20 | The third battle of Bach Dang river | 1288 | Mongol invasion of Vietnam | 85,000 |
The most significant number of victories in battles were won by the mighty empires, which took part in many wars.
Which countries have won the most battles?
| Rank | Country | Won battles |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | France | 1115 |
| 2 | The United Kingdom / England | 1105 |
| 3 | United States | 833 |
| 4 | Russia | 491 |
| 5 | Germany | 425 |
| 6 | Spain | 387 |
| 7 | Poland | 344 |
| 8 | Rome | 259 |
| 9 | China | 244 |
| 10 | Turkey | 210 |
The Somme in WW1 had about 1m casualties, and Stalingrad in WW2 had getting on for 2m. And that’s just the ones off the top of my head. Verdun and Passchendaele would prob beat that 700k figure at the top.
Bet this page is written by a Yank.
They said Battle, not war you dumb f***.
Stalingrad , Verdun , Passchendaele and The Somme were all battles and should at the top of this list
Their definition of a battle was given as – The term “battle” referred to the meeting of two armies on a single battlefield and fought each other for anywhere from one to several days.
Their definition of a battle was given as – The term “battle” referred to the meeting of two armies on a single battlefield and fought each other for anywhere from one to several days.The Somme, Verdun, etc are categorised as “battles” but do not fall within the definition as given here.
Good point, but most people are simply reacting without actually reading the material thoroughly as you have. You can’t compare a siege to a battle in ancient times, although since WWI, the idea of what constitutes a battle has been interpreted to mean very different things. The Battle of Britain, The Battle of the Bulge, and the Battle of Midway are all notable parts of WW II, but they refer to completely different types of military engagements.
No, because they were aided by the UK, making it a multi-nation battle, and not a battle between only two nations.
shut up frank
This isnt about you Frank
When a person uses foul language their comments are disqualified by reason that you are indecent and uneducated.
Their definition of a battle was given as – The term “battle” referred to the meeting of two armies on a single battlefield and fought each other for anywhere from one to several days.The Somme, Verdun, etc are categorised as “battles” but do not fall within the definition as given here.
it fucking says casualties you dumb fuck
Bro you curser Frank
freak
Idiot those are battles
Their definition of a battle was given as – The term “battle” referred to the meeting of two armies on a single battlefield and fought each other for anywhere from one to several days.
Why is there only chinese battles.
I guess there was a lot of casualties in the chinese area
I counted 7 out of 20 battles were in what is today China. I did not count Mongol or Korean (Goryeo/Goguryeo) battles if the other party was not Chinese. So not “only Chinese battles” but one third (35%) are, which is significant but not surprising when one considers the context. Specifically, overpopulation, long history of close civilizations, geography vulnerable to invasion, and selection bias of the list’s criteria.
China has long been the world’s most populated region, it only stands to reason a pitched battle will cause 10 times more casualties in a location with one million people than a place with one hundred thousand. And China has a long history of civilization, meaning there were a couple thousand more years of opportunities of war, as not only it had multiple highly populated kingdoms living cheek by jowl, fighting over resources and power, it also early on invented technology to inflict greater damage during wars, such as gunpowder.
And its geography made it vulnerable to invasion, especially from the ferocious nomadic horse warriors to the north, as the steppes offered a highway for horseback invasions. They did not build the Great Wall for nothing. Genghis Khan is the best known as he succeeded in conquering China (and much of the world besides), but China came under attack repeatedly throughout their history. And also carried out attacks.
Finally, the narrow definition of “battle” used in this analysis must be creating a selection bias. The definition favors battles from further back in history when it was more common for two nations to duke it out on one battlefield in days-long conflicts. As others have pointed out, more recent battles in Europe have numbers of casualties that should earn at least a couple of them a place on the list but they do not fit the strict criteria.
Also, I think the list should have included locations. As one third of the battles are in China, the brain naturally assumes all Asian names fit the pattern, when they occurred in Asia but outside China. I had to look up many of the battles to figure that out.
China was ruled by Manchu and Mongolians. North East China ruled by Korean Kingdoms.
What battles were inside the US in the last century?
American Civil War (1861 – 1865)
That was over 100 years ago. I’m wondering about the US battles that appeared in that video in last 50-100 years.
i WANT TO KNOW WHAT THE ONE IN IOWA AND FLORIDA IN 2017 ARE ALL ABOUT?
Battle for florida man supremacy.
The attack on Pearl harbor. Short battle, but still a battle. If you mean by last century the 20th that is.
Pearl Harbor was an overseas colony, not an American state.
It was annexed.
i know duh then the japanese like literally destroyed it but they didn’t even attack the fuel storage tanks or the other bases lol oh btw iam polish so i am in warsaw poland right now and i am going to krakow
Same
I’m also part Russian,Polish,Mongolian,Chinese,South Korean, and yeah
Except I’m in Virginia
Just the battle to get Donald Trump’s useless ass from the White House in 2021.
Freakin’ Democrat
This author lazily copied one section of the Wikipedia entry for lists of battles by casualties ignoring pretty much all of modern history, including 5 battles in WW2 alone that exceeded 700,000 deaths
Is there any battles in africa now?
Also the battle of Changping
Fancy the French having greater number of victories than Brits after effectively being shut down by the Brits on the world stage. I guess a lot of French victories would have been secured against spear throwers in Africa.
yeah ur wright
You make me laugh. France has beaten Britain (more like England as Scotland hates England as well) more times than I can fucking count.
Great site very informative, do you include industrial war/battles? prisoners’ taken war at sea would also be interesting, as with aerial battles what would be nice to see is the “Cost” of each war..
yeah lol the wikipedia probably didn’t even put copyright lol
what
wait I wonder if the wikipedia put copyright lemme check
I couldn’t see copyright but there might be lol >:D
You are telling me that no eu battle came cloce to 700k casultes?
I do not agree with the method followed in this site. How can you claim that Rome – to start with- whose power lasted for a millennium, fought -and thus won-less battles than France or England…or even Poland? The 250 or so battles with which Rome is being credited, amounts to a victory every four years…obviously an imprecise figure, at best…..
The USA has not won 833 battles. They have only won 10 major wars.
Nice work. It’s good, but the battles labeled “China” should be labeled by the dynasty. Just using China is like just using “Greece” for Macedonia, Sparta, and Athens.
Hate you
where is Pakistan 🇵🇰
Hah what a joke, USA would be lower than Germany, Spain and also turkey and England wouldn’t be that high.
what happened in istanbul in 2017? no way there was a battle
It’s eye-opening to see how the battles are highly concentrated in Europe. It makes sense when you think it has a long history of small nations living cheek by jowl, many of whom formed empires by conquest. Europe has of course evolved and through the unity of the European Union has sought to maintain peace–nonetheless old disputes arising from their fraught history cause modern wars, like Ukraine and the Balkans. Though Europe tried to keep peace with Russia through diplomacy and trade, and by refusing to let Ukraine join NATO because Putin had made clear this would be crossing a red line and Russia would retaliate. So at the 2008 Bucharest Summit, NATO rejected Ukraine’s request for an application for membership (through vetos by Germany’s Merkel and France’s Sarkozy) in an effort to appease Putin and has never budged. Unfortunately, dictators with delusions of imperial conquest cannot be appeased. So instead of maintaining the peace, leaving Ukraine unprotected outside of NATO only allowed Putin to indulge his fantasy of being Czar Vladimir the Great and invade Ukraine, annexing Crimea by force, fighting a war by proxy through Russians living in Eastern Ukraine, and escalating to an all-out invasion a year ago. Thankfully, Canada (which has a modest but highly trained professional military force) has been training Ukrainian troops for a decade, in response to the invasion of Crimea and proxy war in Eastern Ukraine, over 40,000 of them now, and continues in Poland and Britain, alongside British instructors. Our 320 military instructors had to relocate to Poland when Russia invaded as NATO troops cannot be in Ukraine without risking a direct confrontation that would lead to WWIII. Canada was one of the nations in favour of allowing Ukraine to apply for NATO membership at the 2008 Summit and has the highest number of ethnic Ukrainians outside Ukraine and Russia–including our Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance. So Ukraine, with high-level training from Canada with assists from the UK and US, and with all the weapons and supplies given them by NATO and other countries, was able to defend itself in ways Putin and his fellow warmongers did not predict.
So as much as this is entirely Putin’s fault, and Europe had been actively seeking to avoid conflict with Russia, and cannot let an invading imperial dictatorial country conquer a fellow European democracy without at least giving it the means to defend itself–nonetheless here we are: the world’s most prosperous and powerful nations are yet again expending their time, energy and resources on a completely unnecessary European war.
And I can completely understand how the Global South is completely fed up when they need us to be focusing on the climate crisis, ongoing pandemic, natural disasters, other wars, etc. That said, we can’t let Putin win: even if we were willing to sacrifice Ukraine, Putin would not stop there, just as he did not stop when the world let him get away with invading and annexing Crimea. It only encouraged him to try and conquer more of and then all of Ukraine. If we had let him win, he would have next conquered Moldova. Then the tiny Baltic States he insists historically belong to Russia–because Russia conquered and oppressed them in previous centuries. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have been NATO members for decades precisely to protect them from another Russian invasion. Which Putin can no longer dismiss as “Russophobia” as not only has Russia invaded them in recent history, it has just invaded a neighbor in current time. So the Baltics legitimately needed the Deterrence and Defense NATO membership offers. They are not encroaching on Russia in any way. They are merely preventing Putin from invading their sovereign territory and that angers him because he very much wants to invade.
But if NATO let Putin conquer Ukraine and Moldova (which is officially neutral and not a NATO country), then Putin might make a terrible miscalculation and invade the Baltics, assuming NATO is weak and will sacrifice the three little countries like it did Ukraine and Moldova. But “an attack on one of us is an attack on all of us” and “not one inch” is the very creed of NATO. The moment Russian soldiers set one jackboot in the Baltics, we have WWIII between nuclear powers. Alternatively, Putin might try to conquer Finland and Sweden before they become official NATO members. It is telling that Turkey, geopolitically and socioeconomically vulnerable to Putin’s bullying, is deliberately stalling and sabotaging the admission of Finland and Sweden. But even before they are official members, they officially have the protection of NATO nations like the UK and they both have very well-trained military forces. The Russian army is in shambles, resorting to untrained conscripts and obsolete weapons at this point. Finland and Sweden could take them, but Russia fights dirty, bombing civilians. And NATO nations would move to protect them, and once again we risk WWIII. And not only would allowing Russia to invade and conquer sovereign nations with impunity send the completely wrong message to Putin, but also to all the other dictators eying other nations with imperial conquest in mind. If we abandoned Ukraine, how long before Chinese leader Xi Jinping invades Taiwan, for example?
So the only answer is to give Ukraine everything it needs to win. We are only now providing Ukraine with our Leopard 2 tanks (they are German-made and Germany waited one year in to the war before it lifted the prohibition on giving them to another country.) If we had moved faster Ukraine would have won by now. And that’s the only answer. We cannot allow Putin to win, NATO cannot fight in Ukraine and risk escalating to a world war, so we need to give Ukraine everything it needs to win. As quickly as possible and then move on to other problems.
And find new ways of preventing wars in Europe and elsewhere. Economic sanctions, international censure, legal actions and accusations, attempts at appeasement through building trade and diplomatic relations and capitulating to Putin’s threats over allowing Ukraine to apply for NATO protection when Ukraine as a sovereign nation under threat of Russian invasion had every right to want to join an international alliance that would deter invasion–none of it stopped Putin from repeatedly invading Ukraine between 2014 and now.
Meanwhile, we should find ways to make sure the needs of the Global South are not neglected. By a quirk of geography, most of the powerful and prosperous nations are in the north where most of the landmass and most developed countries are. The Global South is mainly made up of former colonies of northern nations, and/or small developing nations in Latin America, Africa, Asia and Oceania. Organizations like G20 try to balance that but more is needed. Perhaps a U.N.-led Global South Year–as soon as we help Ukraine defeat the brutal and illegal Russian invasion.
I’ve heard of a war having 4 million casualties. It’s called the 3 Kingdoms War
no, it says that it has 40 million