This is a list of the longest-reigning monarchs in history, detailing the monarchs and lifelong leaders who have reigned the longest, ranked by length of reign.
Monarchs of sovereign states with verifiable reigns by exact date The following are the 25 longest-reigning monarchs of states who were internationally recognised as sovereign for most or all of their reign. Roman emperors Constantine VIII and Basil II, reigning for 66 years in total (962–1028) and for 65 years in total (960–1025) respectively, are not included, because for part of those periods they reigned only nominally as junior co-emperors alongside senior emperors.
Regencies (and coregencies as a "senior" monarch) are not counted against monarchs, hence Louis XIV is listed first among the monarchs of sovereign states despite his mother Anne of Austria being his regent for eight years. A distinction is not made between absolute and constitutional monarchs, hence Elizabeth II is listed second despite being a figurehead her entire reign.
The currently living longest-reigning monarch, Hassanal Bolkiah of Brunei, who began his reign on 5 October 1967, is not included on the list because Brunei was not a sovereign state until 1 January 1984.
Portrait Name State Reign Duration From To (days) (years, days) 1 Louis XIV 2 Elizabeth II 3 Rama IX 4 Johann II 5 Kʼinich Janaabʼ Pakal I Palenque 6 Franz Joseph I 7 Chan Imix Kʼawiil Copán 8 Ramesses II New Kingdom of Egypt 9 Ferdinand III 10 Victoria 11 James I Aragon 12 Hirohito 13 Kangxi Emperor Qing (China) 14 Itzamnaaj Bahlam III Yaxchilan 15 Kʼakʼ Tiliw Chan Yopaat Quiriguá 16 Qianlong Emperor Qing (China) 17 Christian IV 18 Mary Teresa Massa and Carrara (Italy) 19 George III 20 Honoré III Monaco 21 Louis XV France 22 Pedro II 23 Al-Mustansir Billah Fatimid Caliphate 24 Nicholas I 25 Wilhelmina
Monarchs of dependent or constituent states with verifiable reigns by exact date The table below contains 100 monarchs of states that were not independent sovereigns for at least a portion of their reigns.
Portrait Name State Reign Duration From To (days) (years, days) 1 Sobhuza II (British protectorate until 1968) 2 Bernhard VII Lippe (part of Holy Roman Empire) 3 Udai Pratap Nath Shah Deo Chotanagpur (part of British Raj until 1947, part of India from 1950) 4 Maeda Tsunanori Kaga Domain (part of Tokugawa shogunate, Japan) 5 William IV Henneberg-Schleusingen (part of Holy Roman Empire) 6 Karansinhji II Vajirajji Lakhtar State 7 Heinrich XI Reuss-Obergreiz (part of Holy Roman Empire) Friedrich Wilhelm Trebge, Spuren im Land, Hohenleuben, 2005.Thomas Gehrlein, Das Haus Reuß: Älterer und Jüngerer Linie, Börde Verlag 2006, 8 Tampin (Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia) (part of British Malaya until 1957) 9 Christian Augustus Palatinate-Sulzbach (part of Holy Roman Empire) 10 Rairakhol State 11 Charles I Eu (part of France) 12 Phaltan State 13 Eugen Erwein the Posthumous Schönborn-Heusenstamm (part of Holy Roman Empire) 14 Bhagvatsingh Sahib Gondal State (part of British Raj) 15 George William Schaumburg-Lippe 16 Afonso I Henriques County of Portugal (part of Kingdom of León) (1112–1139) (1139–1185) 17 Charles Frederick Baden (part of Holy Roman Empire until 1806) 18John I Leuchtenberg (part of Holy Roman Empire) 19 John III Louis Nassau-Saarbrücken (part of Holy Roman Empire) 20 Okada Domain (part of Tokugawa shogunate, Japan) 21 Henry Frederick Hohenlohe-Langenburg (part of Holy Roman Empire) 22 Victor-Maurice Revello and Senonches (part of Holy Roman Empire) 23 Jagatjit Singh Kapurthala State (part of British Raj) 24 Parashuramrao Shrinivas I Aundh State (part of Maratha Empire, later British East India Company) 25 Henryk IX Starszy Żagań-Głogów (part of Bohemia) Jasiński, Kazimierz. Rodowód Piastów śląskich (in Polish). Kraków: Avalon, 2007, pp. 399–419 26 Salm-Reifferscheid (part of Holy Roman Empire) 27 Carl I August Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach 28 George I Anhalt-Dessau (part of Holy Roman Empire) 29 Alberico I Massa and Carrara (part of Holy Roman Empire) 30 Reinhard III Leiningen-Westerburg-Schaumburg (part of Holy Roman Empire) Thomas Gehrlein: Das Haus Leiningen. 900 Jahre Gesamtgeschichte mit Stammfolgen. Börde-Verlag, Werl 2011, ISBN 978-3-9811993-9-0 31 Sanada Yukimichi Matsuhiro Domain (part of Tokugawa shogunate, Japan) 32 Heinrich Joseph Johann Principality of Auersperg (part of Holy Roman Empire) 33 Frederick III Inner Austria (part of Holy Roman Empire) 34 George William Palatinate-Zweibrücken-Birkenfeld (part of Holy Roman Empire) 35 Godefroy Maurice de La Tour d'Auvergne Duchy of Bouillon (part of Holy Roman Empire, later France) 36 Frederick V Hesse-Homburg 37 John Louis Volrad Löwenstein-Wertheim-Virneburg (part of Holy Roman Empire) 38 Vikramatji Khimojiraj Porbandar State 39 Krishnaraja Wodeyar III Kingdom of Mysore (Princely state of East India Company after 1831; British Raj after 1857) 40 Castell-Rüdenhausen (part of Holy Roman Empire) 41 Sangli State (part of Maratha Empire, later British East India Company) 42 Otto II the One-Eyed Brunswick-Göttingen (part of Holy Roman Empire) Dietrich Denecke and Helga-Maria Kühn (eds.): Göttingen. Geschichte einer Universitätsstadt, 3 vols., vol.1, Göttingen, 1987, 43 Sawant Singh Pratapgarh State (part of Maratha Empire, later British East India Company) 44 Christian Karl Reinhard Leiningen-Dagsburg-Falkenburg (part of Holy Roman Empire) 45 Raja Ram Singh Bundi State 46 Vakhatsinhji Meghrajji Vallabhipura State (part of British Raj) Columbia-Lippincott Gazetteer p. 1417. 47 Malietoa Tanumafili II 48Ernest II Oettingen-Wallerstein (part of Holy Roman Empire) 49 Philip I Lippe-Alverdissen (1613–1640) Schaumburg-Lippe (1640–1681) (part of Holy Roman Empire) 50 Henry III Margraviate of Meissen (part of Holy Roman Empire) 51 Eleanor Aquitaine (part of France) 52 Sulaiman Sharif ul-'Alam Shah Sultanate of Serdang (part of Dutch East Indies until 1945 and part of Indonesia since 1945) 53 Augustus Anhalt-Plötzkau (part of Holy Roman Empire) 'Johann Valentin Andreae's Utopian Brotherhoods' by Donald R. Dickson, Renaissance Quarterly Vol. 49, No. 4 (Winter, 1996), pp. 760–802 54 Amarsinhji Banesinhji Wankaner State (part of British Raj) 55 Frederick I Helfenstein-Wiesensteig (part of Holy Roman Empire) 56 Khengarji III Cutch (part of British Raj) 57 Philip I Brunswick-Grubenhagen (part of Holy Roman Empire) 58 William IV the Victorious Brunswick-Lüneburg (part of Holy Roman Empire) 59 Leopold III Anhalt-Dessau (part of Holy Roman Empire) 60 Charles Theodore Palatinate-Sulzbach (1733–1742) County Palatine of the Rhine (1742–1799) (part of Holy Roman Empire) Thomas, Marvin E., Karl Theodor and the Bavarian Succession, 1777–1778. The Edwin Mellen Press: Lewiston/Lampeter/Queenston: 1989. 61 Makino Tadakiyo Nagaoka Domain (part of Tokugawa shogunate, Japan) Papinot, Edmond. (2003) Nobiliare du Japon – Makino, p. 29; Papinot, Jacques Edmond Joseph. (1906). Dictionnaire d’histoire et de géographie du Japon. (in French/German). 62 Este and Ferrara (part of Holy Roman Empire) 63 Jean I Duchy of Brittany (part of France) 64 Frederick William Hohenzollern-Hechingen (part of Holy Roman Empire) 65 Eggenberg (part of Holy Roman Empire) 66 Miraj Senior (part of British Raj) 67 Marguerite Charlotte Ligny (part of France) 68 Marie II County of Soissons (part of France) 69 Vishwanath Singh Bahadur Chhatarpur State (part of British Raj) 70 Frederick II Magnus Salm-Neuweiler (part of Holy Roman Empire) 71 Oda Nobuhisa Obata Domain (part of Tokugawa Shogunate, Japan) 72 Ibrahim Johor, Malaysia (part of British Malaya until 1957) 73 Sayajirao Gaekwad III Baroda State (part of British Raj) 74 Albert Anton Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt (part of Holy Roman Empire) 75 Anthony Günther Duchy of Oldenburg (part of Holy Roman Empire) Friedrich-Wilhelm Schaer: Anton Günther, in: Hans Friedl, Wolfgang Günther, Hilke Günther-Arndt and Heinrich Schmidt (eds.): Biographisches Handbuch zur Geschichte des Landes Oldenburg, Isensee Verlag, Oldenburg, 1992, , pp. 37–40 76 Frederick Augustus I Saxony 77 Matilda Tuscany (de jure part of Holy Roman Empire) 78 Johann Gerhard Manderscheid-Gerolstein-Bettingen (part of Holy Roman Empire) Schöning, Erwin: Bildung der Grafschaft Manderscheid-Gerolstein: Graf Johann Gerhards besondere Vorliebe für seine Residenz. In: Daun (Landkreis): Heimat-Jahrbuch. 1997, S. 61 – 63 79 Ludwig I Principality of Anhalt (part of Holy Roman Empire) 80 Isa bin Ali Al Khalifa Rosemary Said Zahlan, The Making of the Modern Gulf States, Reading 1998 [2nd ed.], p. 98 81 Charles III Upper Lorraine (part of Holy Roman Empire) 82 Philip II Isenburg-Birstein (part of Holy Roman Empire) Detlev Schwennicke: Europäische Stammtafeln, Neue Folge, Band I.3, Tafel 316, Verlag: Vittorio Klostermann, Frankfurt a. M. 2000 83 Johann Friedrich II Hohenlohe-Neuenstein-Öhringen (part of Holy Roman Empire) The Leopoldina Correspondence Network: Die Korrespondenz der Deutschen Akademie der Naturforscher um 1750, p. 404, Marion Mücke, Thomas Schnalke, SLR, 2009 84 Philipp Ernst Hohenlohe-Waldenburg-Schillingsfürst (part of Holy Roman Empire) Adolf Fischer: Geschichte des Hauses Hohenlohe. II. Teil, Zweite Hälfte, W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1871, S. 124–136 (Nachdruck der drei Bände von 1866, 1868 und 1871. Herausgegeben vom historischen Verein für Württembergisch Franken, Schwäbisch Hall, Hohenloher Druck- und Verlagshaus Gerabronn 1991, ISBN 3-87354-195-5) 85 Bernhard II Saxe-Meiningen 86 Saqr bin Mohammed Al Qasimi Ras Al Khaimah (part of Trucial States until 1971, sovereign 1971–72, United Arab Emirates from 1972) 87 Philip II Nassau-Weilburg (part of Holy Roman Empire) 88 Salm-Hoogstraat (part of Holy Roman Empire) 89 Philip Joseph Salm-Kyrburg (part of Holy Roman Empire) 90 Christian II Palatinate-Birkenfeld-Bischweiler (part of Holy Roman Empire) 91 Hafiz Muhammad Ibrahim Ali Khan Bahadur Tonk State (part of British Raj) 92 Léopold Philippe Arenberg (part of Holy Roman Empire) 93 Rudolf I Bregenz-Chur-Lower Raetia (part of Holy Roman Empire) 94 Kumamoto Domain (part of Tokugawa shogunate, Japan) 95 Nahar Singh Shahpura State (part of British Raj) 96 Chandrabhan Singh Garrauli State (part of British Raj) 97 Heinrich XXV Reuss-Gera Younger Line (part of Holy Roman Empire) 98 Johann Christian I Eggenberg (part of Holy Roman Empire) 99 Christian Louis Waldeck-Wildungen (part of Holy Roman Empire) 100 Tuanku Abdul Hamid Halim Shah Kedah Sultanate (part of British Malaya)
Monarchs whose exact dates of rule are unknown These monarchs are grouped according to length of reign by year in whole numbers. Within each year-grouping, they appear alphabetically. In a given year, there may have been a wide array of actual reign lengths based on days. Thus, this table does not present a precise ranking by total length of reign. The list is limited to those that might reasonably be expected to lie within the range of those in the tables above, at minimum 57 years. states were sovereign. Japanese legendary emperors, according to the ancient Japanese calendar, reigned for very long terms of 60–70 years each. The longest ruler of the legendary emperors, Emperor Kōan, was claimed to have reigned for about 101 years. These figures are not included in the table because they are regarded as inaccurate by modern scholars. For those, see Longevity myths. Rulers with both independent and dependent rules are combined.