It was the second largest contiguous empire the world had seen, surpassed only by the Mongol Empire. At one point in 1866, it stretched from eastern Europe, across Asia, and into North America.

At the beginning of the 19th century, Russia was the largest country in the world, extending from the Arctic Ocean to the north to the Black Sea on the south, from the Baltic Sea on the west to the Pacific Ocean on the east. Across this vast realm were scattered the Emperor's 176.4 million subjects, the third largest population of the world at the time, after Qing China and British Empire, but still represented a great disparity in economic, ethnic, and religious positions. Its government, ruled by the Emperor, was one of the last absolute monarchies left in Europe. Prior to the outbreak of World War I in August 1914 Russia was one of the five major Great Powers of Europe.

Fort Ross, an early-19th-century outpost of the Russian-American Company in Sonoma County, California.

Nicholas II, the last Tsar of Russia.

Council of Ministers

Main article: Russian Council of Ministers

By the law of October 18, 1905, to assist the emperor in the supreme administration a Council of Ministers (Sovyet Ministrov) was created, under a minister president, the first appearance of a prime minister in Russia. This council consists of all the ministers and of the heads of the principal administrations. The ministries were as follows:

• Ministry of the Imperial Court
• Ministry of Foreign Affairs;
• Ministry of War;
• Ministry of Navy
• Ministry of Finance;
• Ministry of Commerce and Industry (created in 1905);
• Ministry of Internal affairs (including police, health, censorship and press, posts and telegraphs, foreign religions, statistics);
• Ministry of Agriculture;
• Ministry of ways of Communications;
• Ministry of Justice;
• Ministry of National Enlightenment.

The Most Holy Synod (established in 1721) was the supreme organ of government of the Orthodox Church in Russia.

(History)