The state constitution longer than Anna Karenina

The longest constitution of any country in the world belongs to India, which is appropriately the world’s most populous country. It stands at 145,000 words – a bit longer than Homer’s Odyssey in the original Greek, and over twice the length of the second longest national constitution, Nigeria’s. As a point of comparison, the United States constitution, arguably the world’s oldest active written constitution,1 is only around 7,500 words including amendments. But there’s another active constitution even longer than India’s, though it’s not for an independent country. Instead, it somehow belongs to the US state of Alabama. Coming in at 369,380 words, Alabama’s constitution is just barely longer than Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina with “only” about 349,000.2 It’s also right about half the length of the Bible (a bit over or under depending on the edition), and more than 3 times as long as the Constitution of the State of Texas, the second longest of any US state. And somehow, this is the…

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