Acolonial empire is a collective of territories (often called colonies), either contiguous with the imperial center or located overseas, settled by the population of a certain state and governed by that state.
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 exploration between the then most advanced European maritime powers, Portugal and Spain, during the 15th century.[1] 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 existedinclassical 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.[2] 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.[3][4]
Portugal began establishing the first global trade network and one of the first colonial empires[5][6] 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 French, English, Dutch and Japanese empires. By the mid-17th century, the Tsardom of Russia, continued later as the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, and modern Russia, became the largest contiguous state in the world and remains so to this day.
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.
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The chart below[original research?] shows the span of some European colonial empires.
Belgian Empire (1908–1962)
Belgian Congo (1908–1960)
Ruanda-Urundi (1922–1962)
Belgian concession of Tianjin (1902–1931)
British Empire (1707–1997/present)
English colonial empire (1585–1707)
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)
Thirteen Colonies British West Indies
Bahamas
Barbados
Bermuda
Leeward Islands (1671–1816),(1833–1958)
Windward Islands (1833–1960)
Cayman Islands
Colony of Jamaica (1655–1962)
Trinidad and Tobago
Turks and Caicos Islands
British Honduras (1862–1981)
British Guiana (1814–1966)
Kingdom of Mosquitia (1638–1860)
British Hong Kong (1841–1997)
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)
Canada
Dominion of Newfoundland
States and territories of Australia (1901–present)
Realm of New Zealand (1907–present)
Mandates under South African administration (1915–1990)
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 West India Company:
Dutch East India Company
Dutch India Dutch East Indies
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)
New France (1534–1763) and Quebec
French Louisiana
French West Indies (1635–today) Saint Pierre and Miquelon
French Indochina and French Indochinese Union (1887–1954)
French Guangzhouwan (1898–1945)
New Hebrides (1906–1980)
French Polynesia
New Caledonia
Wallis and Futuna
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)
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 Islands of the Aegean (1912–1947)
Italian Albania (1939–1943)
Italian Montenegro (1941–1943)
Portuguese Empire (1415–1999)
Portuguese colonization of the Americas
Colonial Brazil (1500–1815)
Portuguese India (1505–1961)
Portuguese Ceylon (1598–1658)
Portuguese Timor (1702–1975)
Portuguese Macau (1557–1999)
Portuguese East Africa (1498–1975)
Portuguese West Africa (1575–1975)
Portuguese Guinea (1474–1974) (1974–1975)
Portuguese Cape Verde (1462–1975)
Portuguese São Tomé and Príncipe (1470–1975)
Russian Empire (1721–1917)
Spanish Empire (1492–1825/1898-1975)
Spanish East Indies (1565–1898)[7]
Spanish Africa
Spanish Guinea (1778–1968)[8]
Spanish Sahara (1884–1975)
Spanish protectorate in Morocco (1912–1956)
Ifni (1476–1524/1859–1969). Habsburg Spain in Europe:
Duchy of Milan (1559–1706)[9] Spanish Netherlands (1556–1713)
Swedish Empire (1638–1663, 1733, 1784–1878)
New Sweden (1638–1655)
Swedish colony of Saint Barthélemy (1784–1878) Guadeloupe (1813–1814) Swedish Gold Coast (1650–1658, 1660–1663) Swedish Africa Company Swedish East India Company Parangipettai (1733) Swedish Factory, Canton Factories (1757–1860)
Japanese Empire (1868–1945)
EzoasHokkaido (1869–present)
RyukyuasOkinawa Prefecture (1879–1945 & 1972–present)[10]
Taiwan (1895–1945)
Karafuto Prefecture (1905–1949)
Korea (1910–1945)
South Seas Mandate (1919–1947)
Manchukuo (1932–1945) Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere (1932–1945)
Ottoman Empire (1354–1908)
Cretan State (1898–1913)
Crimean Khanate (1475–1774)
Ottoman Albania (1479–1912) Ottoman Bosnia and Herzegovina (1463–1908) 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)
United Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia (1859–1862)
Protectorate of Aceh (1496–1903) Ottoman Arabia (1517–1919) Ottoman Iraq (1538–1918) Ottoman Syria (1517–1918)
Emirate of Nejd (1818-1914) 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 (1816–present)
American Samoa (1899–Present)
Guam (1898–Present)
Northern Mariana Islands (1986–Present)
Puerto Rico (1898–Present)
United States Virgin Islands (1917–Present)
Commonwealth of the Philippines (1935–1946)
Insular Government of the Philippine Islands (1902–1935)
Republic of Hawaii (1898–1900) Minor Outlying Islands (1857–Present)
Ryukyu Islands (1950–1972)
Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (1947–1994)
American Concession in Shanghai (1848–1863)
Guantanamo Bay (1903–present)
Panama Canal Zone (1903–1979)
Habsburg monarchy Colonies[12] and the 
Austro-Hungarian Empire (1719–1750, 1778–1783, 1901–1917)
Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (1637–1795) and 
Poland colonial initiatives
Duchy of Courland and Semigallia (aLatvian vassal of Poland–Lithuania in 1637–1690):
German colonial initiatives (1683–1721)
Brandenburg-Prussia (1683–1721)[12]
County of Hanau[15]
Grand Duchy of Tuscany: Thornton expedition (1608–1609)
Kingdom of Sicily: Kingdom of Africa (1135–1160)
Knights Hospitaller (Malta, a vassal of the 
Kingdom of Sicily): Hospitaller colonization of the Americas
Norway
Kingdom of Scotland (1621–1707)
Kingdom of Morocco (1975–present)
Omani Empire (1652–1892)
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)
Qing dynasty), 
(221 BC – 1911)
Ethiopian colonies as the Aksum Empire
Persian Empires
Abbasid CaliphateinIfriqiya
Chola empire
Sikh Empire (1799–1849)
Jammu and Kashmir (princely state) (1819–1846)
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (1834–1849)
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