mercantile empire
Commerce-based realm
A mercantile empire is a state or network of territories built primarily on trade and commercial dominance rather than territorial conquest alone.
Such empires, like the Dutch and British empires of the 17th and 18th centuries, established colonies and trading posts to control valuable commodities and shipping routes.
The term emphasizes economic extraction and trade monopolies as the driving forces of imperial expansion.
The spice trade fueled the growth of several mercantile empires.
- tradingExchanging for value
- spice tradeHistorical exchange of aromatics
- coloniesTerritories under foreign control
- colonial powersNations that colonized others
- spicesAromatic food flavorings
Dutch · British · fleet · monopoly · conquest · ports · wealth · East India Company · joint stock · dominion · silk · navigation · tariffs · gold · expansion · chartered · trading posts · overseas
mercantile empiresubsistence economy
System without market surplus
autarky · agrarian society · feudal economy · barter economy · command economy
mercantile empirehermit kingdom
Nation deliberately avoiding outside contact
city-state · landlocked state · Bhutan · North Korea · chiefdom
mercantile, empire, merchant, merchants, mercantilism, mercantilist, commerce, commercial, commercially