Map: European colonialism conquered every country in the world but these five
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Darth Sidious
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http://www.vox.com/2014/6/24/5835320/map-in-the-whole-world-only-these-five-countries-escaped-european
t's no secret that European colonialism was a vast, and often devastating, project that over several centuries put nearly the entire world under control of one European power or another. But just how vast can be difficult to fully appreciate.
Here, to give you a small sense of European colonialism's massive scale, is a map showing every country put under partial or total European control during the colonial era, which ran roughly from the 1500s to the 1960s. Only five countries, in orange, were spared:
As you can see, just about every corner of the globe was colonized outright or was dominated under various designations like "protectorate" or "mandate," all of which are indicated in green. This includes the entirety of the Americas (French Guiana is incorrectly labeled as part of Europe due a technical issue, but make no mistake, it was colonized) and all of Africa save for little Liberia. More on Liberia later. The Middle East and Asia were divided up as well.
Some countries instead fell under "spheres of influence," marked in yellow, in which a European power would declare that country or some part of it subject to their influence, which was a step removed from but in practice not all that distinct from conquering it outright. Iran, for example, was divided between British and Russian sphere of influence, which meant that the European powers owned exclusive rights to Iranian oil and gas in their areas, among other things.
Most of the areas under spheres of influence on this map were politically dominated by the British, who ruled through proxies: Afghanistan (which also endured Russian influence), Bhutan, and Nepal. Mongolia was effectively a proxy state of the Soviet Union for much of the Cold War.
Something similar happened in China, where European powers established parts of coastal cities or trade ports as "concessions," which they occupied and controlled. Some, such as Shanghai, were divided into multiple European concessions. Others, like British-controlled Hong Kong, were fully absorbed into the European empires. This is why China is labelled as partially dominated by Europe.
Modern-day Saudi Arabia came under partial ? ; in the early 1900s, most of the Arabian peninsula transitioned from the Ottoman Empire to the British Empire, though the British left much of the peninsula's vast interior relatively untouched. Parts of modern-day Turkey itself were divided among World War One's European victors, though Turkish nationalists successfully expelled them almost immediately in a war for independence that established modern-day Turkey.
There are only four countries that escaped European colonialism completely. Japan and Korea successfully staved off European ? , in part due to their strength and diplomacy, their isolationist policies, and perhaps their distance. Thailand was spared when the British and French Empires decided to let it remained independent as a buffer between British-controlled Burma and French Indochina. Japan, however, colonized both Korea and Thailand itself during its early-20th-century imperial period.
Then there is Liberia, which European powers spared because the United States backed the Liberian state, which was established in the early 1800s by freed American slaves who had decided to move to Africa. The Liberian project was fraught — the Americans who moved there ruled as a privileged minority, and the US and European powers shipped former slaves there rather than actually account for their enslavement — but it escaped European ? .
There is also debate as to whether Ethiopia could be considered the sixth country never subjugated by European colonialism. Italy colonized neighboring countries, and Ethiopia ceded several territories to Italian colonization as part of an 1889 treaty. The treaty was also intended to force Ethiopia to cede its foreign affairs to Italy — a hallmark of colonial subjugation — but the Amharic version of the treaty excluded this fact due to a mistranslation, leading to a war that Italy lost. Later, Italy conquered Ethiopia in 1935 and annexed it the next year, but this lasted only until 1941. While some consider this period of Italian rule to be a function of colonialism, others argue that it's better understood as part of World War Two and thus no more Italian colonization than the ? conquest of Poland was German colonization — although it could be certainly be argued that these fascist expansions were in fact a form of colonialism, as many eastern Europeans might.
The colonial period began its end after World War Two, when the devastated nations of Western Europe could no longer afford to exert such global influence and as global norms shifted against them. The turning point is sometimes considered the 1956 Suez Crisis, in which the US and Soviet Union pressured British and French troops to withdraw after invading Egypt to seize the Suez Canal with Israeli help. But it took a couple of decades for the European colonialism to fully collapse; France was fighting for Algeria until 1962 and Portugal did not abandon its African colonies until 1974. So this map, of a European-dominated world, is not as distant as it may feel for many Americans.
t's no secret that European colonialism was a vast, and often devastating, project that over several centuries put nearly the entire world under control of one European power or another. But just how vast can be difficult to fully appreciate.
Here, to give you a small sense of European colonialism's massive scale, is a map showing every country put under partial or total European control during the colonial era, which ran roughly from the 1500s to the 1960s. Only five countries, in orange, were spared:
As you can see, just about every corner of the globe was colonized outright or was dominated under various designations like "protectorate" or "mandate," all of which are indicated in green. This includes the entirety of the Americas (French Guiana is incorrectly labeled as part of Europe due a technical issue, but make no mistake, it was colonized) and all of Africa save for little Liberia. More on Liberia later. The Middle East and Asia were divided up as well.
Some countries instead fell under "spheres of influence," marked in yellow, in which a European power would declare that country or some part of it subject to their influence, which was a step removed from but in practice not all that distinct from conquering it outright. Iran, for example, was divided between British and Russian sphere of influence, which meant that the European powers owned exclusive rights to Iranian oil and gas in their areas, among other things.
Most of the areas under spheres of influence on this map were politically dominated by the British, who ruled through proxies: Afghanistan (which also endured Russian influence), Bhutan, and Nepal. Mongolia was effectively a proxy state of the Soviet Union for much of the Cold War.
Something similar happened in China, where European powers established parts of coastal cities or trade ports as "concessions," which they occupied and controlled. Some, such as Shanghai, were divided into multiple European concessions. Others, like British-controlled Hong Kong, were fully absorbed into the European empires. This is why China is labelled as partially dominated by Europe.
Modern-day Saudi Arabia came under partial ? ; in the early 1900s, most of the Arabian peninsula transitioned from the Ottoman Empire to the British Empire, though the British left much of the peninsula's vast interior relatively untouched. Parts of modern-day Turkey itself were divided among World War One's European victors, though Turkish nationalists successfully expelled them almost immediately in a war for independence that established modern-day Turkey.
There are only four countries that escaped European colonialism completely. Japan and Korea successfully staved off European ? , in part due to their strength and diplomacy, their isolationist policies, and perhaps their distance. Thailand was spared when the British and French Empires decided to let it remained independent as a buffer between British-controlled Burma and French Indochina. Japan, however, colonized both Korea and Thailand itself during its early-20th-century imperial period.
Then there is Liberia, which European powers spared because the United States backed the Liberian state, which was established in the early 1800s by freed American slaves who had decided to move to Africa. The Liberian project was fraught — the Americans who moved there ruled as a privileged minority, and the US and European powers shipped former slaves there rather than actually account for their enslavement — but it escaped European ? .
There is also debate as to whether Ethiopia could be considered the sixth country never subjugated by European colonialism. Italy colonized neighboring countries, and Ethiopia ceded several territories to Italian colonization as part of an 1889 treaty. The treaty was also intended to force Ethiopia to cede its foreign affairs to Italy — a hallmark of colonial subjugation — but the Amharic version of the treaty excluded this fact due to a mistranslation, leading to a war that Italy lost. Later, Italy conquered Ethiopia in 1935 and annexed it the next year, but this lasted only until 1941. While some consider this period of Italian rule to be a function of colonialism, others argue that it's better understood as part of World War Two and thus no more Italian colonization than the ? conquest of Poland was German colonization — although it could be certainly be argued that these fascist expansions were in fact a form of colonialism, as many eastern Europeans might.
The colonial period began its end after World War Two, when the devastated nations of Western Europe could no longer afford to exert such global influence and as global norms shifted against them. The turning point is sometimes considered the 1956 Suez Crisis, in which the US and Soviet Union pressured British and French troops to withdraw after invading Egypt to seize the Suez Canal with Israeli help. But it took a couple of decades for the European colonialism to fully collapse; France was fighting for Algeria until 1962 and Portugal did not abandon its African colonies until 1974. So this map, of a European-dominated world, is not as distant as it may feel for many Americans.
Comments
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so the slaved that went back ti Liberia... are their kids american Africans?
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Thanks to all those emperors and conquerors in Asia it was united unlike all the other countries who lived under separate nations, flags and tribes
Europeans never defeated whole armies they conquered by befriending certain ones and asking to help them fight others them after they no longer needed them they turned on them when numbers were in their favor -
ehh define "conquered". korea was annexed by japan, liberia was essentially a giant rubber plantation for the US. plus a lot of the areas that were "conquered" were never defeated directly by Europeans
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I think europeans interrupted the unification of a great portion of Africa by the Zulu nation
Africa would probably be in better shape if the zulus went uninterrupted -
korea was annexed by japan
Japan is not White though, so it does not count as European expansion. -
It's all thanks to the Industiral Revolution. Britain basically led the way during that period, which led to a huge jump in weaponry, which led to them having a combat advantage pretty much anywhere they went.
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those asians got the blueprint on how to stiff arm the system 4real
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The Lonious Monk wrote: »It's all thanks to the Industiral Revolution. Britain basically led the way during that period, which led to a huge jump in weaponry, which led to them having a combat advantage pretty much anywhere they went.
Guns, germs and steel. -
And money
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they still managed to set up a military base on their island.
but yea, them ? must've not been having that ? . soon as they peeped game them ? formed rallies and demonstrations on some:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uC4AUyju7k -
those asians got the blueprint on how to stiff arm the system 4real
They also were so far from Europe and America due to the mountains and the Eastern part of Russia. That's one of the reasons why Russia got that ass whopped in the Russo-Japanese War. -
White pig go home!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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I think europeans interrupted the unification of a great portion of Africa by the Zulu nation
Africa would probably be in better shape if the zulus went uninterrupted
idk, zulus were vicious, they woukd have committed at least 1 genocide if they kept expanding -
The Lonious Monk wrote: »It's all thanks to the Industiral Revolution. Britain basically led the way during that period, which led to a huge jump in weaponry, which led to them having a combat advantage pretty much anywhere they went.
Guns, germs and steel.
Had to read that book in college, never made it passed 1st chapter -
vagrant-718 wrote: »The Lonious Monk wrote: »It's all thanks to the Industiral Revolution. Britain basically led the way during that period, which led to a huge jump in weaponry, which led to them having a combat advantage pretty much anywhere they went.
Guns, germs and steel.
Had to read that book in college, never made it passed 1st chapter
Your loss I did it for fun and it's hypothesis was very intriguing -
True. but let's not forget the Japanese were brutal there -
The Lonious Monk wrote: »It's all thanks to the Industiral Revolution. Britain basically led the way during that period, which led to a huge jump in weaponry, which led to them having a combat advantage pretty much anywhere they went.
Guns, germs and steel.
Yeah you're right. Guns and steel were the products from the Industrial Revolution. Germs were what won Europe the Americas though and that preceded the Industrial Revolution. -
vagrant-718 wrote: »The Lonious Monk wrote: »It's all thanks to the Industiral Revolution. Britain basically led the way during that period, which led to a huge jump in weaponry, which led to them having a combat advantage pretty much anywhere they went.
Guns, germs and steel.
Had to read that book in college, never made it passed 1st chapter
Smh, it's one of my favorite books. I read that ? for fun. -
The Lonious Monk wrote: »It's all thanks to the Industiral Revolution. Britain basically led the way during that period, which led to a huge jump in weaponry, which led to them having a combat advantage pretty much anywhere they went.
European weaponry advantage is greatly exaggerated
17th /16th century inaccurate european one shot gun wasnt any competition to a bow and arrow
Name a forceful conquer that wasn't vicious. I think s savagery is a prerequisite to being a conquerer
But they would've solidified a good portion of Africa and maybe got overthrown by another dynatsy some time later, which would have led to other portions becoming solidified in Africa -
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The Lonious Monk wrote: »It's all thanks to the Industiral Revolution. Britain basically led the way during that period, which led to a huge jump in weaponry, which led to them having a combat advantage pretty much anywhere they went.
European weaponry advantage is greatly exaggerated
17th /16th century inaccurate european one shot gun wasnt any competition to a bow and arrow
Name a forceful conquer that wasn't vicious. I think s savagery is a prerequisite to being a conquerer
But they would've solidified a good portion of Africa and maybe got overthrown by another dynatsy some time later, which would have led to other portions becoming solidified in Africa
I don't see how that's good or desirable -
The Lonious Monk wrote: »It's all thanks to the Industiral Revolution. Britain basically led the way during that period, which led to a huge jump in weaponry, which led to them having a combat advantage pretty much anywhere they went.
European weaponry advantage is greatly exaggerated
17th /16th century inaccurate european one shot gun wasnt any competition to a bow and arrow
Name a forceful conquer that wasn't vicious. I think s savagery is a prerequisite to being a conquerer
But they would've solidified a good portion of Africa and maybe got overthrown by another dynatsy some time later, which would have led to other portions becoming solidified in Africa
I don't see how that's good or desirable
Just like china it would have galvanized the continent under one leadership, making it harder for foreigners to come in and exploit every aspect of it. -
The Lonious Monk wrote: »It's all thanks to the Industiral Revolution. Britain basically led the way during that period, which led to a huge jump in weaponry, which led to them having a combat advantage pretty much anywhere they went.
European weaponry advantage is greatly exaggerated
17th /16th century inaccurate european one shot gun wasnt any competition to a bow and arrow
Name a forceful conquer that wasn't vicious. I think s savagery is a prerequisite to being a conquerer
But they would've solidified a good portion of Africa and maybe got overthrown by another dynatsy some time later, which would have led to other portions becoming solidified in Africa
I don't see how that's good or desirable
Just like china it would have galvanized the continent under one leadership, making it harder for foreigners to come in and exploit every aspect of it.
at the expense of millions of African lives? you know there is a reason why the Zulus didn't expand, the Xhosa checked them. China was a mess until relatively recently too. idk why people keep pushing this United States of Africa concept, its not feasible or desirable -
The Lonious Monk wrote: »It's all thanks to the Industiral Revolution. Britain basically led the way during that period, which led to a huge jump in weaponry, which led to them having a combat advantage pretty much anywhere they went.
European weaponry advantage is greatly exaggerated
17th /16th century inaccurate european one shot gun wasnt any competition to a bow and arrow
Name a forceful conquer that wasn't vicious. I think s savagery is a prerequisite to being a conquerer
But they would've solidified a good portion of Africa and maybe got overthrown by another dynatsy some time later, which would have led to other portions becoming solidified in Africa
I don't see how that's good or desirable
Just like china it would have galvanized the continent under one leadership, making it harder for foreigners to come in and exploit every aspect of it.
at the expense of millions of African lives? you know there is a reason why the Zulus didn't expand, the Xhosa checked them. China was a mess until relatively recently too. idk why people keep pushing this United States of Africa concept, its not feasible or desirable
the various people of Africa were better off doing their own thing without being forced to be a united situation -
White people are some violent, vicious ? smh
