Does the Ferengi Alliance contain planets that have been conquered?

Question

Their first appearance in TNG were supposed to be menacing and, along with the Cardassians (who came later), they were one of the new powers who were to be a threat, alongside the Borg.

Everything we know about their backstory mostly comes from the later DS9 show, and while Quark certainly made many self-righteous monologues about how Ferengi are traders, not conquerors, this comes off as something of a retcon.

Do we know if the Ferengi Alliance contains planets that were conquered by the Ferengi in earlier times?

Answer 1

The Ferengi aren't necessarily benign, they just hold profit in such high regard that conquest doesn't seem to be a common societal goal. The Ferengi-controlled areas are called the Ferengi Alliance. A fan made map depicts their space as thus

Some of that map comes from recent canon (there was an out-of-focus map in Star Trek: Picard), so it may reflect post-DS9 events. Dopteria, for instance (which is presumably the home of Dopterians, described as "cousins of the Ferengi"), would seem unlikely to be conquered, as opposed to aligned. We don't know much about this alliance, only that it preferred to stay neutral.

You can also see they don't have much area to expand to before running up against much more powerful adversaries. They're squarely between the Federation (right), Breen (above) and Cardassians (below). While it is possible they have conquered planets, that list would be incredibly short.