A 2020 study argues kings thrived because communication was slow
Why did so many societies end up with a single hereditary ruler? A 2020 study proposed a practical answer: monarchy was an efficient way to govern big populations and territories when coordinating people was hard. As transport and communications improved, that advantage faded, and so, the authors argue, did the monarchies themselves.
Some of the oldest documented monarchs are Narmer, a pharaoh of Egypt around 3100 BCE, and Enmebaragesi, king of the Sumerian city of Kish around 2600 BCE. They grew out of prehistoric chiefdoms and tribal kingship. In Egypt, China, India, Mesopotamia and several other traditions, rulers also performed sacred duties tied to sacrifice and were sometimes credited with divine ancestry, a possible seed of the later divine right of kings. Even the earliest records show some thrones passing by inheritance and others filled by election.
The English word monarch appeared in the mid-fifteenth century as monark, via Old French and Late Latin from the Greek monarkhos, one who rules alone. In antiquity, Polybius counted monarchy among three benign forms of government, alongside aristocracy and democracy, each with a corrupt twin: tyranny, oligarchy and mob rule.
The line between kingdom and republic has often blurred. The Dutch Republic had monarchical features, while the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Sweden during its Age of Liberty from 1719 to 1772 were monarchies with strongly republican workings. Challenges to royal power mounted from the seventeenth century, from England's Parliament temporarily overthrowing the crown in 1649 to the American and French revolutions.
Nearly half of all independent states were monarchies at the start of the nineteenth century, a share that peaked around mid-century and then fell steadily as republics replaced kingdoms after both world wars. As of 2025, forty-three sovereign countries still have a monarch, fifteen of them Commonwealth realms sharing King Charles III. Most reign under constitutions with little or no political power, and many survive as crowned republics in small states. In a few, including Morocco, Qatar, Liechtenstein and Thailand, the hereditary ruler remains the single most influential authority.
Source: Monarchy
