Interactive Map of Decolonization

For hundreds of years, powerful countries ruled over other lands and peoples as colonies. This map shows every country that broke free and became independent—starting with the United States in 1776, all the way to today. Click "By decade" to see when each country became independent, or "By colonial power" to see who ruled it before. Click any country to learn its story. Scroll or pinch to zoom in.

Highlight countries whose independence was gained mainly by:
What this map includes (and leaves out)
What's on this map: countries that broke away from an overseas empire—British, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Belgian, Italian, German, Ottoman, Japanese, or American—from 1776 to today. That includes the wave of independence in the Americas (1776–1820s) and the much larger 20th-century wave across Africa, Asia, and the Pacific. It also includes a few countries that broke away from a neighboring country that had itself once been a colony (like Bangladesh from Pakistan, or South Sudan from Sudan).

What's left out on purpose: the break-up of the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia, and 19th-century independence movements in the Balkans against the Ottoman Empire (Greece, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria). Historians usually treat those as separate stories from overseas colonial decolonization. Also left out: countries like the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand's own much earlier, gradual paths to full self-rule as British settler colonies.

A note on "armed struggle / non-violent protest / peaceful agreement": this is the hardest call on the map. Many countries' paths to independence involved more than one of these at different times. Each country is labeled by its main path, with the messier parts of the story noted in the pop-up text where it matters.

Map resolution note: a few of the smallest microstates (e.g. Tuvalu, Gibraltar, Tokelau) are too small to render at this map's resolution and are omitted.