Soviet Union

Where it sits in time

Five thousand years, 3000 BCE to 2026; the state in gold, what it replaced or followed and what replaced or followed it in grey.

Before and after

The states the record files it as replacing or following, and those that replaced or followed it - Wikidata's own statements, each read from this state's side.

Rulers

The leaders of its ruling party, read from English Wikipedia, List of leaders of the Soviet Union, revision 1378402176 - the line the atlas measures; its formal heads of state are listed with the government below.

8 rulers, 8 with terms dated as terms, covering 1922 – 1991. Median reign 4 years. 6 of 7 handovers irregular - a killing, a deposition, a rival claimant, a rising or a coup beside it. A blank in the last column means no kin on record, which is coverage, never “unrelated”.

Formal heads of state and heads of government

The line of head of government, drawn and never measured: a cabinet is not a reign.

Ground held, by year

km² inside its borders as the borders dataset draws them, measured on an equal-area grid; a step series, held between the years the dataset maps.

21.10 million km² in 1923, 21.81 million km² in 1991; at its largest 22.18 million km² in 1973. Cliopatria, CC BY 4.0.

Flags and arms, in order

Each symbol with the years its own statement gives; the timeline flies the one of the year on screen.

What happened within it, by century

Every row the atlas hosts under this state, by the century it began in: wars and battles in red, risings, regime changes and massacres beside them, everything else in grey. A tall bar is a century the record is full for, which is partly a fact about Wikipedia.

Among all states

Each measure against the states that carry it, never against all of them: a bar is the share of those states below this one.

• How long it stood68 years

  stood longer than 39% of 3,187 states with a recorded end or still standing.

• The most ground it held24,486,700 km²

  held more ground at its peak than 100% of 1,465 states with a border in Cliopatria.

• Wars recorded per century11.0

  had more wars on record per century than 100% of 3,187 states, counting the wars the atlas hosts under each.

• How long a reign lasted, at the median6 years

  had longer reigns, at the median, than 22% of 967 states whose dated line can carry a median.

• Rulers on record8

  has more rulers on record than 76% of 1,968 states with a line of rulers.

What led to it, and what came of it

The investigation's own picture: 170 causes the record names and 18 results, the strongest six of each at their own years, joined to the state by the kind of claim - a recorded statement solid, the article's sentence dashed, a theory dash-dot.

Open the investigation: every row with its evidence, the conditions at the time, the theories condition by condition, and the succession analysed.

Theories that apply to its ending

Of 3 theories of why states fall, 1 has every condition present at this ending; each is applied by its own logic, condition by condition, and whether its authors named this case is a footnote.

• Demographic-structural breakdown

  Goldstone 1991 · Turchin & Nefedov 2009

  Applies by its own logic: 3 of its 3 conditions held here (it needs 2), and this is the kind of outcome it predicts — unrest, adverse regime change or the state's ending.

  • famine, plague or disaster within 30 y in the state, or population up 25% over 50 y — prior; popGrowth 48
  • overlapping reigns — rival claimants — within 20 y, or 3 or more changes of ruler within 20 y, or 2 or more reigns of two years or less within 20 y, or a monarch deposed or killed within 20 y — handovers 3; shortReigns 2
  • a war the state is fighting, still under way, or a war the state fought, ended within 10 y — warOngoing; warEnded