Which countries have had the largest armies in history?

Thousands of years ago, the oldest civilizations had prepared many of their men for military work. Countless peoples and cultures have had their armies with various purposes, such as conquering other territories or simply defending themselves from attacks by enemies. In any case, an army is essential, at least if the country wants to position itself politically without fear.

Thinking about all these military periods, let's say, Halcyon Maps has created a graph that shows the major armies that have ever existed in the world and at what period, with the approximate number of soldiers they had. The result is quite interesting, as we can see which peoples have become more or less militarized over time.

Although today armies were full of new technologies, hundreds of years ago (not so far away) the strongest were the most numerous, since the forces were measured in the number of warriors. From the graph, we can look at Western (in blue) and Eastern (in red) civilizations and relate these data. It is interesting to compare the Ottoman Empire in 1500 with its 162, 000 soldiers to the Ming Dynasty army with 1 million and 300, 000 warriors in the same year.

To compare the world's largest armies, their respective nations, and the years in which they existed, see the chart below: