Colonial empire

Regions that belonged once to a colonial empire. (animated map, 1492 to present)

The Colonial empires were a product of the European Age of Exploration (or Age of Sail) that began with a race of exploration between the then most advanced maritime powers, Portugal and Spain, in the 15th century. The initial impulse behind these dispersed maritime empires and those that followed was trade, driven by the new ideas and the capitalism that grew out of the European Renaissance. Agreements were also done to divide the world up between them in 1479, 1493, and 1494.

Portugal began establishing the first global trade network and empire under the leadership of Henry the Navigator. Portugal would eventually establish colonial domains from Brazil, in South America, to several colonies in Africa (namely Portuguese Guinea, Cape Verde, São Tomé and Príncipe, Angola and Mozambique), in Portuguese India (most importantly Bombay and Goa), in China (Macau), and Oceania (most importantly Timor, namely East Timor), amongst many other smaller or short-lived possessions (see Evolution of the Portuguese Empire).

During its Siglo de Oro, the Spanish Empire had possession of the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Belgium, most of Italy, parts of Germany, parts of France, and many colonies in the Americas, Africa, and Asia. With the conquest of inland Mexico, Peru, and the Philippines in the 16th century, Spain established overseas dominions on a scale and world distribution that had never been approached by its predecessors (the Mongol Empire had been larger but was restricted to Eurasia). Possessions in Europe, Africa, the Atlantic Ocean, the Americas, the Pacific Ocean, and the Far East qualified the Spanish Empire as attaining a global presence in this sense.

From 1580 to 1640 the Portuguese Empire and the Spanish Empire were conjoined in a personal union of its Habsburg monarchs during the period of the Iberian Union, but beneath the highest level of government, their separate administrations were maintained.

Subsequent colonial empires included the French, English, Dutch, and British empires. The last, consolidated during the period of British maritime hegemony in the 19th century, became the largest empire in history by virtue of the improved transportation technologies of the time. At its height, the British Empire covered a fifth of the Earth's land area and comprised a quarter of its population. By the mid 17th century, the Tsardom of Russia, continued later as Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, became the largest contiguous state in the world, and the modern Russian Federation continues to be so to this day. Despite having "lost" its Soviet periphery, Russia has 9 time zones, stretching for about a half the world's longitude.

List of colonial empires

1. Portuguese Empire (1415 to 1999 - or present counting the Azores and Madeira island possessions)
   • Evolution of the Portuguese Empire
   • Portuguese colonization of the Americas
2. Spanish Empire (1492 to 1975)
   • Spanish colonization of the Americas
3. Russian empire (1580 to 1917)
   • Russian conquest of Siberia
   • Russian colonization of the Americas
4. Dutch Empire (1602 to 1975)
   • Dutch colonization of the Americas
5. French Empire (1605 to present)
   • The French colonial empire
   • The First French Empire of Napoleon I (1804–1814 or 1815)
   • The Second French Empire of Napoleon III (1852–1870)
   • The First and Second French Colonial Empire (1605–1962)
   • French colonization of the Americas
   • List of Colony and possessions of France
6. British Empire (1607 to present)
   1. Territories and mandates under Australian administration (1901 to 1975)^[1]
   2. Territories and mandates under New Zealand administration (1907 to present)^[2]
   3. Mandates under South African administration (1915 to 1990)^[3]
   • English colonial empire (1583 to 1707)
   • Evolution of the British Empire
   • British colonization of the Americas
   • Scottish colonization of the Americas
7. Danish colonial empire (1620 to 1953)
   • Danish colonization of the Americas
8. Courland colonization (vassal of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth) (1637 to 1690)
   • Courish colonization of the Americas
9. Swedish colonial empire (1638 to 1663 and 1785 to 1878)
   • Swedish colonization of the Americas
10. German colonial initiatives (1683 to 1721, 1883 to 1919)
    • Colonies of Brandenburg-Prussia (1683–1721)^[4]
    • German colonial empire (1883 to 1919)
    • German colonization of the Americas
11. Habsburg Monarchy colonies (1719–1750, 1778–1783, 1901–1917)^[4]
12. Belgian colonial empire (1885 to 1962)
    • Congo Free State (1885 to 1908)
13. Italian Colonial Empire (1885 to 1943)
    • Italian colonization of the Americas
14. List of possessions of Norway
    • Norway Antarctic and sub-Antarctic possessions (1927 to 1957)^[5]
    • Norse colonization of the Americas

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  Portuguese Empire

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  Spanish Empire

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  Russian Empire

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  Dutch Empire

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  French Empire

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  British Empire

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  Danish Empire

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  Swedish Empire

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  German Empire

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  Belgian Empire

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  Italian Empire

See also

• Colonialism
• Western empires
• Islamic empire
• Global empire
• Great divergence
• European miracle
• The empire on which the sun never sets
• List of Colony and possessions of France

Notes

1. ^ The Australia dominion, itself a colony that gradually increased its independence in 1901, 1942 and 1986, was tasked with the government of multiple other British colonies and territories and the mandates of New Guinea and Nauru.
2. ^ The New Zealand dominion, itself a colony that gradually increased its independence in 1907, 1947 and 1986, was tasked with the government of multiple other British colonies and territories and the mandate of Samoa. It was also nominal co-trustee of the mandate of Nauru. The remaining non-self-governing New Zealand territory is Tokelau.
3. ^ The South-West Africa mandate was governed by the South Africa dominion, that itself a colony that gradually increased its independence in 1910, 1931 and 1961.
4. ^ ^{a b} Part of the Holy Roman Empire realm before 1804.
5. ^ The dependencies of Norway are uninhabited, thus as end date is taken the latest date of full Norwegian sovereignty extension to such territory, instead of the date of decolonization or integration in the administrative structures of the mainland. Bouvet Island claimed in 1927, under Norway sovereignty since 1930.
   Peter I Island claimed in 1929, under Norway sovereignty since 1933.
   Queen Maud Land claimed in 1938, under Norway sovereignty since 1957.
   Peter I Island and Queen Maud Land fall under the scope of the Antarctic Treaty System since 1961.

External links

• Visualizing western empires decline