List of irredentist claims or disputes

Not all territorial disputes are irredentist, although they are often couched in irredentist rhetoric to justify and legitimize such claims both internationally and within the country.

Prominent Irredentist Disputes (by Geographical Area)

Prominent irredentist disputes during the past century have included:

Europe

* Spanish claims to Gibraltar which was ceded in perpetuity to Britain in 1713 under the Treaty of Utrecht, and argues its case at the United Nations claiming its territorial integrity is affected.
* Croatian claims to parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Montenegro
* Greece's claims on areas of the ex-Ottoman Empire. After World War I Greece claimed what is now the Aegean coastline of Turkey, because of the predominance there of Greek population since antiquity and former rule by the Byzantine Empire. Other Greek irredentist claims under the "Greater Greece" policy called "Megali Idea" included south Albania (Northern Epirus) and Cyprus.
* French claims before World War I to Alsace-Lorraine.
* Nazi Germany's claims to Alsace-Lorraine, areas of Poland, Lithuania, Austria and the Czech Sudetenland.
* Gabriele D'Annunzio's occupation of Fiume (now Rijeka) from 1919–1921 — proclaimed as the Italian Regency of Carnaro, the original irredentist dispute (when the term was first popularized).
* Hungarian claims to parts of the neighbouring countries inhabited by the ethnic Hungarians (including parts of Slovakia, Romania, Serbia, Ukraine, etc.). The claim is based on historic criteria for some regions (such as Transylvania, where Hungarians are a minority in two counties), and ethnic for other regions. Hungary actually lost 2/3 of territories according to the treaty of Trianon in 1920.
* Romanian irredentists before World War I claimed the unification of areas where Romanians formed a majority into the national Romanian state. The goal was achieved in 1918, but Bessarabia, Northern Bukovina and Southern Dobrudja were lost again in 1940. More recently, the goal of Romanian irredentism is the re-establishment of Greater Romania as advocated by the Greater Romania Party, thus claiming territories from all of Romania's neighbours besides Serbia and Hungary.
* The Soviet Union annexed parts of Finnish Karelia after World War II. This question of the status of ceded Karelia was revived in Finland after the end of Cold War.
* Serbian claims to large areas of Bosnia and Croatia (on grounds of ethnic affiliation).
* Bosniak claims to Sandžak.
* Albanian claims to Kosovo, which Serbia asserts is a province of Serbia, and which the Kosovar government insists is an independent country, as well as to parts of the Montenegro, the Republic of Macedonia (on grounds of ethnic affiliation) and Greece.
* Irredentists from the Republic of Macedonia have expressed land claims to the entire region of Macedonia out of which only 40% lies within the Republic of Macedonia, the rest being in Greece, Bulgaria and Albania, on the purported grounds of ethnic affiliation.
* Bulgarian irredentists have claimed the Republic of Macedonia based on the idea that the Macedonians are actually Bulgarians, this was an important factor in Bulgarian foreign policy between Bulgarian independence and World War II.
*Russian Federation: Ingush claims for the Prigorodny District in North Ossetia as part of Ingushetia.
* A nationalist movement in Armenia started in 1988 with a claim to Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan

Asia

* Japan's Kuril Islands Dispute with the former Soviet Union (now Russia), most recently over the loss of the southern four islands in the Kuril Islands chain in the closing days of World War II under the Treaty of San Francisco. The Ainu, a people indigenous to Japan, had been the sole inhabitants of the islands for thousands of years until ethnic Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians began to settle there and displace them.
* Syrian claim for the remaining portion of the Golan Heights, captured by Israel in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and later annexed.
* Palestinian claims to the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, captured by Israel during the 1967 Six-day war. Hamas and other Palestinian factions claim the entire territory of the state of Israel.
* Israel's Likud Party at one time called for the annexation of the West Bank [Seymour Hersh, "", Random House, 1991, 259-60.] and, for a time, the Gaza Strip. [Ethan Bonner, [http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/14/weekinreview/14bron.html Why 'Greater Israel' Never Came to Be] , New York Times, August 14, 2005.]
* Mutual counterclaims between the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China to territories currently controlled by the other:
** The People's Republic of China claims to the territories under the control of the government of the Republic of China (Taiwan). South Tibet or Arunachal Pradesh under Indian administration are also claimed by PRC as part of Tibet.
** The Republic of China's claims to Tannu Uriankhai, now a republic of Russia; Outer Mongolia (i.e. the independent country of Mongolia); mainland China, Hong Kong and Macao ruled by the People's Republic of China, and most of the PRC's territorial claims.
* Pakistani claims on behalf of the Kashmiris to Jammu and Kashmir
* The claims of Afghanistan to the Pashtun territories of Pakistan.
*Pakistani claims on the Pashtun areas of Afghanistan.
* Iraqi claims to Kuwait before the Gulf War
*Cambodia has claimed parts of the Mekong Delta that lie in present day Vietnam on the basis that the area, which was formerly part of the Khmer Empire, was artificially carved up by the French during the Colonial Period and given to South Vietnam upon French withdrawal. The area still is home to at least one million ethnic Khmers (the Khmer Krom) who claim to be persecuted by the Vietnamese.

outh America

* Bolivian claims to coastal regions of Chile annexed after the War of the Pacific. More recently, president Evo Morales has expressed his disgust with the secession of Acre (1902), which later become a Brazilian state, saying that the Brazilians provoked the unrest and later paid Bolvia only "a horse's price" for the priceless land. [ [http://terramagazine.terra.com.br/interna/0,,OI1016526-EI6607,00.html O Acre por um cavalo? - Terra - Antonio Luiz MC da Costa ] ]
* Guatemalan claims to Belize and parts of Mexico
* Argentina's claims to the Falkland Islands.

North America

* Claims among Mexicans to the Southwestern United States, purchased by the United States from Mexico in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo after the Mexican-American War for a sum of 15 million dollars, an amount equivalent today to 300 million dollars [ [http://www.westegg.com/inflation/ The Inflation Calculator] . S. Morgan Friedman. "From: Historical Statistics of the United States (USGPO, 1975) and Statistical Abstracts of the United States." December 11, 2006. Last accessed December 20, 2006.] (which would be roughly $220/km² ($571/mi²)).

* The Quebec government still claims that the territory of Labrador belongs to the province of Quebec. Labrador is part of the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. [ [http://www.mef.qc.ca/question_du_labrador.htm La question du Labrador ] ]

Africa

* Morocco's claims, initiated in 1963 by King Hassan II, to a claimed "Greater Morocco" (an area comprising Morocco, parts of Algeria, Western Sahara, Mauritania, the Spanish cities of Ceuta and Melilla). This led to a border war with Algeria and the Moroccan annexation of Western Sahara in 1976.
* Within Somalia, the self-declared Puntland and Somaliland conflict over Sanaag and Sool, based on the Puntland desire to unite areas of the Darod clan.

Irredentist entities

The following is an incomplete list of irredentist entities, both present and historical (i.e. non-extant). Note that "Greater" does not necessarily denote irredentism, but as in the case of Greater India or Greater Middle East may simply refer to historical socio-cultural regions.

*Greater Albania
*Greater Armenia
*Greater Austria
*Greater Britain
*Greater Bulgaria
*Greater China
*Great Colombia
*Greater Croatia
*Greater Finland
*Greater Germany
*Greek "Great Idea"
*Greater Hungary
*Undivided India
*Greater Iran
*Greater Israel
*Greater Italy
*Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere "Japan"
*Greater Lebanon
*Greater Khorasan
*Greater Korea
*United Macedonia
*Greater Mongolia
*Greater Morocco
*Greater Nepal
*Greater Netherlands
*Greater Romania
*Greater Serbia
*Greater Somalia
*Greater Syria
*Greater Yemen
*Pan-Turkism

ee also

*Ethnic nationalism
*Ethnic cleansing
*Identity politics
*Lebensraum
*Revanchism
*Status quo ante bellum
*Manifest Destiny

References