List of civil wars


The Latin term bellum civile was used to describe wars within a single community beginning around 60 A.D. The term is an alternative title for the work sometimes called Pharsalia by Lucan about the Roman civil wars that began in the last third of the second century BC.
The term :wikt:civilis|civilis here had the very specific meaning of 'Roman citizen'.
The English term civil war was first used in 1651 to refer to the English Civil War.
Since the 17th century, the term has also been applied retroactively to other historical conflicts where at least one side claims to represent the country's civil society.
The terms internecine war and domestic war are often used interchangeably with 'civil war', but 'internecine war' can be used in a wider meaning, referring to any conflict within a single state, regardless of the participation of civil forces. Thus, any war of succession is by definition an internecine war, but not necessarily a civil war.
In modern geopolitics since 1945, 'civil war' is also used in a loose sense to refer to any large scale military conflict within a single country, creating terminological overlap with insurgencies or coups d'état.

Past civil wars

Ancient and medieval

This is a list of intrastate armed conflicts that fulfil the definition set by this article: :wikt:civil|civil. Note that some conflicts lack both an article or citation. Without citation, they have not been guaranteed to have happened.
The following civil wars are ongoing as of April 2020. Only ongoing conflicts meeting the definition of a civil war are listed. See list of ongoing military conflicts and lists of active separatist movements for lists with a wider scope.