Micron Document




Colonial empire
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A colonial empire is a state engaging in colonization, possibly establishing or maintaining colonies, infused with some form of coloniality and colonialism. Such states can expand contiguous as well as overseas. Colonial empires may set up colonies as settler colonies.cite-ref-1[1]

Before the expansion of early modern European powers, other empires had conquered and colonized territories, such as the Roman Empire in Europe, North Africa and Western Asia. Modern colonial empires first emerged with a race of explorationcite-ref-2[2] between the then most advanced European maritime powers, Portugal and Spain, during the 15th century.cite-ref-3[3] 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 made to divide the world up between them in 1479, 1493, and 1494. European imperialism was born out of competition between European Christians and Ottoman Muslims, the latter of which rose up quickly in the 14th century and forced the Spanish and Portuguese to seek new trade routes to India, and to a lesser extent, China.

Although colonies existed in classical antiquity, especially amongst the Phoenicians and the ancient Greeks who settled many islands and coasts of the Mediterranean Sea, these colonies were politically independent from the city-states they originated from, and thus did not constitute a colonial empire.cite-ref-4[4] This paradigm shifted by the time of the Ptolemaic Empire, the Seleucid Empire, and the Roman Empire.

The European countries of the modern era that are most remembered as colonial empires are the United Kingdom, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Netherlands, France, Germany and Belgium.cite-ref-5[5]cite-ref-6[6]

Contents


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History

European colonial empires

Portugal began establishing the first global trade network and one of the first colonial empirescite-ref-7[7]cite-ref-8[8] under the leadership of Henry the Navigator. The empire spread throughout a vast number of territories distributed across the globe (especially at one time in the 16th century) that are now parts of 60 different sovereign states. Portugal would eventually control Brazil, territories such as what is now Uruguay and some fishing ports in north, in the Americas; Angola, Mozambique, Portuguese Guinea, and São Tomé and Príncipe (among other territories and bases) in the North and the Subsaharan Africa; cities, forts or territories in all the Asian subcontinents, as Muscat, Ormus and Bahrain (amongst other bases) in the Persian Gulf; Goa, Bombay and Daman and Diu (amongst other coastal cities) in India; Portuguese Ceylon; Malacca, bases in Southeast Asia and Oceania, as Makassar, Solor, Banda, Ambon and others in the Moluccas, Portuguese Timor; and the granted entrepôt-base of Macau and the entrepôt-enclave of Dejima (Nagasaki) in East Asia, amongst other smaller or short-lived possessions.

During its Siglo de Oro, the Spanish Empire had possession of Mexico, South America, the Philippines, all of southern Italy, a stretch of territories from the Duchy of Milan to the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Belgium, parts of Burgundy, and many colonial settlements in the Americas, Africa, and Asia. Possessions in Europe, Africa, the Atlantic Ocean, the Americas, the Pacific Ocean, and East Asia qualified the Spanish Empire as attaining a global presence. 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 English, Dutch and French empires. Throughout the 19th and early 20th century, by virtue of its technological and maritime supremacy, the British Empire steadily expanded to become by far the largest empire in history; at its height ruling over a quarter of the Earth's land area and 24% of the population. Britain's role as a global hegemon during this time ushered in a century of "British Peace", lasting from the end of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars to the start of World War I. During the New Imperialism, Italy and Germany also built their colonial empires in Africa, while Japan started to encroach into former Chinese domains after they have settled their own reformation.

Timeline

The chart below shows the span of some European colonial empires.

• Black lines mark the year of the empires largest territorial extent of land area.
• Red represents that the empire is at that time a monarchy.
• Blue represents that the empire is at that time a republic.

List of colonial empires


Belgian Empire (1908–1962)

• Possessions in Africa

Belgian Congo (1908–1960)
Ruanda-Urundi (1922–1962)

• Possessions in Asia


British Empire (1707–1997/present)

• Possessions in Europe


• Possessions in Africa

British Somaliland (1884–1960)
British Egypt (1914–1936)
Anglo-Egyptian Sudan (1899–1956)
East Africa Protectorate (1895–1920)
Kenya Colony (1920–1963)
Uganda Protectorate (1894–1962)
Tanganyika (territory) (1922–1961)
• Protectorate of Nyasaland (1893–1964)
• Protectorate of Northern Rhodesia (1924–1964)
• Colony of Southern Rhodesia (1923–1965), (1979–1980)
Bechuanaland Protectorate (1885–1966)
British Nigeria (1914–1954)
British Gold Coast (1867–1957)
British Sierra Leone (1808–1961)
British Gambia (1821–1965)



Bahamas
Bermuda
Leeward Islands (1671–1816),(1833–1958)
Windward Islands (1833–1960)
Colony of Jamaica (1655–1962)

British Honduras (1862–1981)
British Guiana (1814–1966)
Kingdom of Mosquitia (1638–1860)

• Possessions in South Asia

East India Company (1757–1858)
India (1858–1947)
Ceylon (1815–1948)
Bhutan (protectorate) (1907–1947)
Sikkim (protectorate) (1861–1948)
Nepal (protectorate) (1816–1923)

• Possessions in East Asia

British Hong Kong (1841–1997)

• Possessions in the Middle East

Trucial States (1820–1971)
British Bahrain (1861-1971)
British Qatar (1916–1971)
British Iraq (1920–1932) (1932–1958)
Emirate of Transjordan (1921–1946)
Mandatory Palestine (1920–1948)
Sheikhdom of Kuwait (1899–1961)
Aden Protectorate (1872–1963)
Muscat and Oman (1892–1970)
Emirate of Afghanistan (protectorate) (1879–1947)

• Possessions in Southeast Asia


• Dominions of the United Kingdom

Canada

Australia 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

Realm of New Zealand (1907–present)

New Zealand 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.


• The South-West Africa mandate was governed by the Union of South Africa, that itself a colony that gradually increased its independence in 1910, 1931 and 1961.

Danish Empire (1620–1979/present)

Danish India (1620–1869)
Danish Gold Coast (1658–1850)

Danish West Indies (1754–1917)
Greenland (1814–1979)

Dutch Empire (1602–1975/present)


Dutch Brazil (1630–1654)
Dutch Gold Coast (1612–1872)




Dutch Cape Colony (1652–1806)
Dutch Formosa (1624–1662)
Dutch Ceylon (1640–1796)
Dutch Malacca (1641–1795) (1818–1825)
Dejima (1641–1854)
Dutch Mauritius (1638–1710)

French Empire (1534–1980/present)


France Antarctique (1555–1567)
New France (1534–1763) and Quebec
French West Indies (1635–today)

Îles des Saintes (1648–present)
Marie-Galante (1635–present)
la Désirade (1635–present)
Guadeloupe (1635–present)
Martinique (1635–present)


• Asia:

French India (1664–1962)

Laos (protectorate) (1893–1953)
Cambodia (protectorate) (1863–1953)
Vietnam

Cochinchina (Southern Vietnam) (1858–1949)
Annam (protectorate) (Central Vietnam) (1883–1949)
Tonkin (protectorate) (Northern Vietnam) (1884–1949)

China

• The foreign concessions : French Concession of Shanghai (1849–1946), Tianjin (1860–1946) and Hankou (1898–1946)
• The spheres of French influence officially recognized by China on the provinces of Yunnan, Guangxi, Hainan, and Guangdong
Shamian Island (1859–1949) (a fifth of the island)
French Guangzhouwan (1898–1945)

• Possessions in the Middle East



French North Africa (1830–1934)
French Morocco (1912–1956)
French Tunisia (1886–1956)
French Somaliland (1883–1975)
French West Africa (1895–1958)
French Madagascar (1882–1958)
French Comoros (1866–1968)
French Equatorial Africa (1910–1958)
Isle de France (1715–1810)
Seychelles (1756–1810)
Reunion (1710–present)
Mayotte (1841–present)

• Oceania:

New Hebrides (1906–1980)

German Empire (1884–1920)

Kamerun (1884–1918)
Togoland (1884–1916)
German South West Africa (1884–1919)
German New Guinea (1884–1919)
German East Africa (1885–1919)
German Samoa (1900–1920)
• German concession of Hankou


Italian Empire (1882–1960)

Eritrea (1882–1947)
Somaliland (1889–1947, 1950–1960 as Italian Trust Territory of Somaliland)
Ethiopia (1936–1941)

Italian East Africa (formed by merging Eritrea, Somaliland and Ethiopia: 1936–1947)

Cyrenaica (1912–1947)
Tripolitania (1912–1947)

Libya (Formed by merging Cyrenaica and Tripolitania in 1934. It dissolved in 1947. It also included the Southern Military Territory of Fezzan)

Italian Albania (1939–1943)
Italian France (1940–1943)
Italian Montenegro (1941–1943)

Portuguese Empire (1415–1999)


Colonial Brazil (1500–1815)

Portuguese India (1505–1961)
Portuguese Ceylon (1598–1658)
Portuguese Timor (1702–1975)
Portuguese Macau (1557–1999)
Portuguese Malacca (1511–1641)
Portuguese Nagasaki (1580–1587)
Portuguese Oman (1507–1656)
Tamão (1514–1521)

Portuguese East Africa (1498–1975)
Portuguese West Africa (1575–1975)
Portuguese Guinea (1474–1974) (1974–1975)
Portuguese Cape Verde (1462–1975)
Portuguese Gold Coast (1482–1642)

Russian Empire (1721–1917)

Finland
Siberia

Russian America (1733–1867)

Sagallo (1889)

Spanish Empire (1492–1825/1898-1975)



Spanish East Indies (1565–1898)cite-ref-10[9]

Spanish Formosa (1626-1642)


Spanish Guinea (1778–1968)cite-ref-11[10]
Spanish Sahara (1884–1975)
Ifni (1476–1524/1859–1969).

Spanish Mazalquivir (1505–1708, 1732–1792)
Spanish Oran (1509–1708, 1732–1792)
Spanish Tripoli (1510–1530)
Spanish Béjaïa (1510–1555)
Peñón de Algiers (1510–1529)
Spanish Tunisia (1535–1569, 1573–1574)
Spanish Larache (1610–1689)
Peñón de Vélez de la Gomera (1508–present)
Melilla (1497–present)
Ceuta (1578/1668–present)

• Possessions of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, Habsburg Spain and Spanish House of Bourboncite-ref-12[11] in Europe:


Spanish Netherlands (1555–1713)

Spanish Holland (1555–1581)
Spanish Belgium (1555–1713)
Spanish Luxembourg (1555–1713)

Franche-Comté (1555–1678)
Charolais (1555–1678)
Upper Alsace (1617–1648)cite-ref-13[12]
Spanish Palatinate (1620–1652)


Kingdom of Sardinia (1479–1713), 1717–1720)
Kingdom of Sicily (1479–1713), 1734–1815)
Kingdom of Naples (1503–1713), 1734–1806)
Principality of Monaco (1524–1641)
State of the Presidi (1557–1708)
Duchy of Milan (1559–1706)
Marquisate of Finale (1602–1713)
Spanish Grischun (1620–1639)
Principality of Piombino (1628–1634)
Duchy of Parma and Piacenza (1734–1738, 1748–1796, 1847–1854)
Kingdom of Etruria (1801–1807)
Duchy of Lucca (1815–1847)
Kingdom of the Two Sicilies (1815–1860)

Swedish Empire (1638–1663, 1733, 1784–1878)


New Sweden (1638–1655)
Guadeloupe (1813–1814)

Swedish Gold Coast (1650–1658, 1660–1663)
Parangipettai (1733)
• Swedish Factory, Canton Factories (1757–1860)


Empire of Japan (1868–1945)

Ezo as Hokkaido (1869–present)
Ryukyu as Okinawa Prefecture (1879–1945; 1972–present)cite-ref-14[13]
Taiwan (1895–1945)
Karafuto Prefecture (1905–1949)
Korea (1910–1945)
South Seas Mandate (1919–1947)
Manchukuo (1932–1945)

Ottoman Empire (1354–1908)cite-ref-15[14]

• Europe:

Cretan State (1898–1913)
Crimean Khanate (1475–1774)
Ottoman Albania (1479–1912)
Ottoman Bulgaria (1396–1878)
Ottoman Crete (1667–1898)
Ottoman Cyprus (1571–1878)
Ottoman Greece (1453–1830)
Ottoman Hungary (1541–1699)
Ottoman Serbia (1459–1804)
Rumelia Eyalet (1365–1867)
Sanjak of Rhodes (1522–1912)

• Asia:

Protectorate of Aceh (1496–1903)
Ottoman Arabia (1517–1919)
Ottoman Iraq (1538–1918)
Ottoman Syria (1517–1918)
Emirate of Nejd (1818-1914)

• Africa:

Khedivate of Egypt (1867–1914)
Turco-Egyptian Sudan (1820–1885)
Ottoman Egypt (1517–1914)
Ottoman Absinia (1554–1872)
Ottoman Algeria (1516–1830)
Ottoman Tripolitania (1551–1912)
Ottoman Tunisia (1574–1881)

Other countries with informal colonial possessions:

United States (1857–present)

• U.S. overseas territories:

Minor Outlying Islands (1857–present)
American Samoa (1900–present)
Guam (1899–present)

Naval Government of Guam (1899–1950)

Northern Mariana Islands (1986–present)
Puerto Rico (1899–present)


United States Virgin Islands (1917–present)
Philippines (1899–1946)


Republic of Hawaii (1898–1900)
Swan Islands (1863–1972)

• U.S.-administered areas:

Canton and Enderbury Islands (1939–1979)
Corn Islands (1914–1971)
Nanpō Islands and Marcus Island (1952–1968)
Panama Canal (Zone) (1903–1999)

Chile (1888–1966)


Habsburg monarchy Coloniescite-ref-hre-16-0[15] and the Austro-Hungarian Empire (1719–1750, 1778–1783, 1901–1917)





Austrian Delagoa Bay (1773–1781)

• Hungarian colonial attemptscite-ref-17[16]cite-ref-18[17]


Duchy of Courland and Semigallia (a Latvian vassal of Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1637–1690):


German colonial initiatives (1683–1721)

Colonies of Brandenburg-Prussia (1683–1721)cite-ref-hre-16-1[15]
Colonies of County of Hanaucite-ref-19[18]
Neu-Askania (1828–1856)

Klein-Venedig (1528–1546)

Pre-unification Italian colonialism


Kingdom of Scotland (1621–1707)



List of possessions of Norway (1920–present)
Norway Antarctic and sub-Antarctic possessions (1927–1957)cite-ref-20[19]

Kingdom of Morocco (1975–present)


Israel (1948–present)


Palestine (1967–present)
Golan Heights (1967–present)
Sinai Peninsula (1956–1957; 1967–1982)
Southern Lebanon (1985–2000)

Omani Empire (1652–1892)

Yaruba dynasty (1624–1742)
Sultanate of Muscat (1652–1820)
Sultanate of Zanzibar (taken by Oman in 1698, became capital of the Omani Sultanate or Empire from 1632 or 1640; until 1890)
Mombasa (1698–1728, 1729–1744, 1837–1890)
Gwadar (1783–1958)

Chinese Empire (from Qin dynasty to Qing dynasty), (221 BC – 1911)

Guangxi
Hainan (since the Han dynasty)


Manchuria (during the Tang, Liao, Jin, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties)



Korea

Canghai Commandery(A commandery that self subjugated to Han dynasty from Dongye)
Four Commanderies of Han (Established after the fall of Gojoseon)
Daifang Commandery (Offshoot of the former four commanderies of Han that existed in the 3rd to 4th century)
• Colonization attempts of the Tang dynasty after Unification of the three kingdoms of Korea (Gyerim Territory Area Command, Protectorate General to Pacify the East and Ungjin Commandery)
Chinese concession of Incheon (during the Qing dynasty)

Outer Mongolia (during for example the Tang and Qing dynasties)


Taiwan (during the Qing dynasty)
Tibet (during the Yuan and Qing dynasties)
Yunnan
Vietnam (from the Han to Tang dynasties, and during the early Ming dynasty)
Central Asia (during the Tang and Qing dynasties)


Ethiopian colonies as the Aksum Empire and Abyssinian empire

Viceroyalty of Yemen (520–578)

Oromia
Gambela



Oman (5th century BC–628; 1743–1747)
Bahrain (5th century BC–629; 1077–1253, 1330–1507)
Sasanian Yemen (570–628)
Bijapur Sultan (1490–1686)
Persianization of regions within Greater Iran


• Umayyad Al-Andalus (Arab Hispania)

Umayyad Gaul (Arab Southern France)

Aghlabids colonies from Ifriqiya


Malta




Khamseh






Sikh Empire (1799–1849)

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (1834–1849)

See also
Notes and references

cite-note-91. United Kingdom France Spain Portugal Netherlands Germany Ottoman Empire Belgium Austria-Hungary Russia Japan Denmark Sweden-Norway United States Italy Independent / Other countries

cite-note-11. "Colonial Empire: Definition | StudySmarter". StudySmarter UK. Retrieved 2024-07-31.
cite-note-22. citerefhaleHale, Sebastian. Ferdinand Magellan The Global Navigator. Shubham. Retrieved 15 July 2025. Following Magellan, the exploration race intensified. Spain, Portugal, England and France eagerly sought to stake their claim on the riches of the New World and beyond.
cite-note-33. Encarta-encyclopedie Winkler Prins (1993–2002) s.v. "kolonie [geschiedenis]. §1.2 De moderne koloniale expansie". Microsoft Corporation/Het Spectrum.
cite-note-44. Encarta, s.v. "kolonie [geschiedenis]. §1.1 Oudheid.
cite-note-55. "Years a country was an European overseas colony". Our World in Data. Retrieved 2024-06-28.
cite-note-66. "Western colonialism | Definition, History, Examples, & Effects | Britannica". www.britannica.com. Retrieved 2024-06-28.
cite-note-77. citerefwilliam-d-phillipsphillips2015William D. Phillips, Jr; Phillips, Carla Rahn (November 12, 2015). Spain as the first global empire. pp. 176–272. doi:10.1017/CBO9781316271940.006. ISBN 9781107109711. Archived from the original on August 10, 2021. Retrieved September 14, 2019. {{cite book}}: |website= ignored (help)
cite-note-88. Powell, Philip Wayne ([1991?]). Árbol de odio: la leyenda negra y sus consecuencias en las relaciones entre Estados Unidos y el mundo hispánico. Ediciones Iris de Paz. ISBN 9788440488855. OCLC 55157841
cite-note-109. part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain before 1821.
cite-note-1110. Part of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata before 1810.
cite-note-1211. During the reign of Philip V of Borbon, an intense diplomatic and military activity was developed with which the recovery of a significant Spanish presence in Italy was achieved. He placed several of his sons as independent sovereigns in different territories, such as the Duchy of Parma and especially the Kingdom of Naples, where the spanish House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies and House of Bourbon-Parma ruled until 1860.
cite-note-1312. Herfried Münkler: Der Dreißigjährige Krieh. Rowohlt, Berlin 2017
cite-note-1413. Gregory Smits (1999). Visions of Ryukyu: Early-Modern Thought and Politics. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 143–149·
cite-note-1514. citerefsuciyan2023Suciyan, Talin (2023-05-01), "Armenian Genocide and its Denial: A Comprehensive Tool of Supremacism?", in Der Matossian, Bedross (ed.), Denial of Genocides in the Twenty-First Century, Nebraska, p. 75, doi:10.2307/jj.1507451.7, ISBN 978-1-4962-3555-8, retrieved 2025-06-24, Arguing that the Ottoman Empire, like her contemporaries, was a colonial empire would lead to the analysis that the Armenian Genocide was a result of Ottoman colonialism and the racism intrinsic to it...
cite-note-hre-1615. Part of the Holy Roman Empire realm before 1804.
cite-note-1716. "Ahol majdnem magyar gyarmatok lettek". 3 November 2014. Archived from the original on 28 May 2022. Retrieved 8 April 2022.
cite-note-1817. "The Hungarian who wanted to colonise Somalia probably with the help of Budapest". 28 June 2019. Archived from the original on 6 December 2022. Retrieved 8 April 2022.
cite-note-1918. part of the Holy Roman Empire before 1736
cite-note-2019. 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