Every county starts with the nearest FBS stadium. Win, and you take everything the loser holds. Lose it all, and the only way back is beating somebody who still owns dirt.
Latest conquests
Battles ahead
Standings
25 landholders · through Oct 24
The standings
After Week 8 of the 2026 season (games through October 24), Washington holds the largest empire on the college football imperialism map: 757,576 mi² across 108 counties, and it kept the crown that week. LSU is second with 366,642 mi² (462 counties), then UCF (304,901 mi²) and Ohio State (261,643 mi²). Week 8 moved 1,638 counties (1,576,525 mi²) in 10 battles and 26 empires became 25. Next, Washington puts the crown on the line against Nebraska on Saturday, October 31.
Updated through
The game
CFB imperialism, also called the college football imperialism map, the imperial map or the empires map, is a game fans play on top of the real season. Every county in the United States starts with the FBS program whose stadium is nearest. When a game goes final, the winner takes all the land the loser holds, so one upset can hand a mid-major half the country, and a team that loses everything can only get back on the map by beating someone who has land. The game was created on r/CFB by u/nbingham196 in 2017; fans there have traded weekly imperialism maps ever since, and SB Nation ran it as the College Football Empires Map in 2018. This site plays it automatically from the official results: the 2026 map refreshes every morning in season, and the timeline above replays every battle in kickoff order.
Beyond the live season, the site has every season since 1869, separate FCS, Division II and Division III imperialism maps, and a coaching-carousel map where land carries over from one season to the next.
The same results feed the records (largest empires, biggest conquests, wildest upsets), a history for every team that ever held land and a career map for every head coach. The rules explain the seeding, raids and data.
Articles of war
Before a down is played, every county in the fifty states is dealt to the FBS program with the nearest stadium, measured as the crow flies from the county's geographic center. Nobody starts landless in the FBS; nobody outside it starts with anything.
When a game goes final, the winner takes everything the loser holds at that moment: home soil and every prior conquest alike. Games are replayed in kickoff order, so an empire can rise and fall inside a single Saturday.
A team with no land has nothing to lose, but it can beat any landholder and take the lot. That is how FCS, Division II and Division III programs raid their way onto the map, and land taken downward can stay there all season.
Ties, unfinished games and games without a score are ignored. Territories (Puerto Rico, Guam, the Virgin Islands) are off the map. Neutral-site games overseas do not yet award foreign soil. A week appears in the timeline once its first game goes final. The current map is refreshed automatically every morning during the season. The 2026 campaign currently runs through October 24. Stadium coordinates, colors and logos are today's; conference and division come from each season's own results. The full rules and methodology have the details.