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.
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 (962âÂÂ1028) and for 65 years in total (960âÂÂ1025) 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 LouisÃÂ 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, is not included on the list because Brunei was not a sovereign state until 1 January 1984.
The table below contains 100 monarchs of states that were not independent sovereigns for at least a portion of their reigns.
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 60âÂÂ70 years each. The longest ruler of the legendary emperors, Emperor Kà Âan, 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.