Thalassocracy (Civ6)/Civilopedia

A Thalassocracy is a political organization which relies on the power of its navy to maintain control. The Greeks first used the term to refer to the Minoans, who controlled the area around the Aegean Sea by virtue of their many trading and warships. A thalassocracy can be governed internally by almost any system--be it a monarch or an oligarchy or squabbling mercantile guilds--but its relations to the rest of the world are defined almost entirely in terms of naval power and control. They are not necessarily as trade- and commerce-focused as a Merchant Republic, and some thalassocracies have been quite predatory in their dealing with others.
The Majapahit Empire of Indonesia was a major thalassocratic power which controlled the spice trade and routes between India and China. Both the Portuguese and Dutch were major thalassocracies of Europe, exerting political power beyond their geographic size by virtue of their navies. As the modern age progressed, naval treaties constrained the size of once-mighty navies (which were rapidly becoming unaffordable anyway). As colonialism waned, so too did the requirements to project and sustain power from the government, and the thalassocracies passed into history.