Major world leaders are listed below, beginning with the Roman Catholic popes and followed by leaders of major nations or dynasties, alphabetically by country. Within each country section, leaders are listed chronologically. It is important to note that name spellings and regnal dates vary among sources, and that variations do not necessarily suggest inaccuracy. For example, dates when leaders took power may not match dates of coronation, and the names by which leaders have been recorded in history may represent birth names, epithets, or regnal names. Date ranges and geographical borders of nations and dynasties vary, given the complexities of politics and warfare, and that “nations” evolved over time from competing and allied principalities. Hence, not every civilization, dynasty, principality, or region can be covered here; we have, however, attempted to provide lists of leaders for those countries most likely to be addressed in general history and area studies courses.

Popes and Antipopes

Africa

See also Angola, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Sudan, Uganda, Zimbabwe

Americas

See also Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Cuba, Mexico, Peru, the United States, Venezuela

Angola

Argentina

Australia

Austria

See Holy Roman Empire

Belgium

Bohemia

See also Hungary, Poland

Bolivia

Brazil

Bulgaria

Byzantine Empire

Canada

Central African Republic

Chad

Chile

China

Congo (Kinshasa)

Croatia (modern)

Cuba (modern)

Czechoslovakia

Denmark

See also Norway, Sweden

Egypt

After the rise of Islam in the seventh century, Egypt was Islamicized and came under the control of a succession of emirs and caliphs.

England

Ethiopia

The evidence for the succession of Ethiopian rulers is debated by scholars; here, the regnal dates reflect primarily the order of succession and vary widely among sources.

Frankish Kingdom and France

The Merovingians and Carolingians ruled different parts of the Frankish kingdom, which accounts for overlapping regnal dates in these tables. The term “emperor” refers to rule over what eventually came to be known as the Holy Roman Empire.

Georgia, Republic of

Germanic Tribes

See also Holy Roman Empire

In the fifth and sixth centuries, Europe was invaded from the east by several “barbarian” tribes from eastern Europe and Central Asia, including the Visigoths, who inflicted the earliest damage on Rome in the late fourth and early fifth centuries; the Burgundians, from central and northeastern Europe; the Vandals, who eventually settled in Spain and North Africa; the Suevi, who made their way to the north of Spain and finally fell to the Visigoths; the Alans, a non-Germanic steppe tribe from Iran who, along with the Suevi and the Visigoths, overran Gaul (France) and the Iberian Peninsula; and the Franks (see Frankish Kingdom and France, above), who occupied most of Gaul during the later Roman Empire and were the only of these early tribes to survive. The Franks would evolve into the Merovingian and Carolingian lines, and by the ninth century they dominated Europe. Below is a list of some of the Germanic tribes and tribal leaders before and during the Frankish period. The region known today as Germany was initially occupied by these tribes and then came under the subjugation of the Frankish Merovingians and Carolingians. In 962, the Holy Roman Empire came into existence and held sway over Germany for nearly a millennium (see Holy Roman Empire, below). Not until the late nineteenth century did the nation-state of Germany come into existence.

Germany

First Reich. See Holy Roman Empire

Ghana

Greece

Holy Roman Empire

Although some sources consider the Holy Roman Empire to have begun with Otto I’s coronation in 962, others date the Empire’s beginning as early as Charlemagne’s consolidation of the Franks and his coronation as emperor of the Frankish Empire in 800. The term “Sacrum Romanum Imperium” (Holy Roman Empire) dates to 1254, the use of the term “Holy Empire” to 1157, and the term “Roman Empire” to 1034 (reign of Conrad II). “Roman emperor” was applied to Otto I during his reign; however, Charlemagne also used the term to refer to his own reign. The concept of a “Holy” Roman Empire goes back to the beginning of the Byzantine Empire and the reign of the first Christian Roman emperor, Constantine the Great. Hence, the concept of this political entity can be considered to have evolved incrementally over time. The practice of papal coronation to legitimate the emperor began with Otto I. Regnal dates are therefore often listed as beginning with the date of coronation. However, the German kings who became Holy Roman Emperors frequently asserted their de facto power earlier as rulers of West Frankia (France), East Frankia (essentially Germany), and/or Italy (roughly the northern portion of modern Italy). In the table below, where a date of ascension to the West Frankish (French), East Frankish (German), Middle Frankish (Lorraine south to Italy), or other throne is different from that to Emperor, the former date is set before a slash and the date of assuming the rule of the Empire falls after the slash. Asterisks indicate that the monarch was not formally crowned at Rome by the pope, a practice that officially ended with Frederick II, although Charles V was last to be crowned outside Rome.

Hungary

See also Bohemia, Poland