Is the World Big Enough

In line with the above, I'm not sure how China could hold all of the areas you mentioned at the same time unless you can come up with a significant butterfly before 500.

I didn't think there was a limit on the POD. But I was imagining some sort of semi-independent autonomous polities within a broader Chinese state. It certainly isn't too hard to keep Mongolia in China with various PODs for Russia.

In other words, Russia is able to retain its size mostly because most of its territory consists of Siberia, which means that it is sparsely populated. In order to have a state which is of comparable size, you would need to find a large region that was barely populated to begin with, and almost no competition from other countries. The latter is probably why North and South America could not have hosted such a large country, not to mention geographic conditions.
That surely applies to North America and eastern South America, no?
 
I didn't think there was a limit on the POD. But I was imagining some sort of semi-independent autonomous polities within a broader Chinese state. It certainly isn't too hard to keep Mongolia in China with various PODs for Russia.

When, though? I can see how it might happen, but if the POD is before the Tang, then you would probably have a China that would be unrecognizable, not to mention that it would probably fracture into numerous states. On the other hand, I'm not really sure if China would go that far to incorporate Mongolia after the Qing. The problem with Russia is that it could have drastic effects for Central Asia and Siberia, which makes things extremely complicated no matter when the POD is.

That surely applies to North America and eastern South America, no?

If you mean that those regions couldn't have had larger states, then I agree. If you're suggesting that some countries could have combined into larger entities, then I'm not so sure. The United States probably could have annexed Canada with optimal conditions, but if the POD was in the late 1700s/early 1800s, the butterflies could lead to a drastically different Civil War, and who knows after that. I highly doubt that Brazil could have expand far beyond its current boundaries, because you have to take demography, geography, and logistics into account.

In other words, the United States, Canada, and Brazil are big as they are today because there were no major settlements before the areas were politically unified, and there was very little competition in their respective regions. In many respects, I think each country was lucky to expand and face minor resistance, but it was possible because of political, linguistic, and cultural unification.
 
How about Antartica becoming part of another nation, for example Australia or Argentina? That would also meet the criteria.
 
Germany developing nukes first, resulting in a large conglomerate dictatorship. Soviets are invaded by an american land force while the areas begin to fragment? During the soviet collapse China invades North, securing farmland for an expanding population.
 

yourworstnightmare

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I'd say this is possible even with a post-1939 PoD. Total area is about ~20,632 km2

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