 For the first century, the term has been applied to both the Roman Empire and the Han Chinese Empire.These two empires covered a similar amount of territory and had a similar population.In reference to the 16th and 17th centuries, when globalization emerged, the term has been applied to a variety of empires including the Ming Chinese Empire, the Portuguese Empire, the Spanish Empire, their Iberian Union, the Habsburg Empire as a whole, and the Islamic Gunpowder empires of Ottoman Turkey, Mughal India, and Safavid Iran.