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 Anne of Austria (; ; born Ana María Mauricia; 22 September 1601 – 20 January 1666) was Queen of France from 1615 to 1643 by marriage to King Louis XIII. She was also Queen of Navarre until the kingdom's annexation into the French crown ...

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 In politics, a figurehead is a practice of who ''de jure'' (in name or by law) appears to hold an important and often supremely powerful title or office, yet '' de facto'' (in reality) exercises little to no actual power. This usually means that ...

her entire reign. The currently living longest-reigning monarch,

Hassanal Bolkiah Hassanal Bolkiah Muiz'zaddin Wad'daulah (born 15 July 1946) is the List of sultans of Brunei, Sultan of Brunei since 1967, and Prime Minister of Brunei, prime minister of Brunei since its independence from the United Kingdom in 1984. He is one ...

of Brunei, is not included on the list because Brunei was not a sovereign state until 1984. He will be eligible for inclusion if he is still reigning in 2040 and surpasses Conrad I's independent rule of 56 years, 99 days.

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.

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 56 years. states were sovereign. Japanese legendary emperors, according to the ancient

Japanese calendar Japanese calendar types have included a range of official and unofficial systems. At present, Japan uses the Gregorian calendar together with year designations stating the Japanese era name, year of the reign of the current Emperor. The written f ...

, 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 Longevity myths are traditions about long-lived people (generally supercentenarians), either as individuals or groups of people, and practices that have been believed to confer longevity, but which current scientific evidence does not support, ...

. Rulers with both independent and dependent rules are combined.

Notes

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