French Colonial Empire Empire colonial français
Colonial Empire
1534–1946
Flag
Anachronous map of the first and second French colonial empires
Capital	Paris
Political structure	Colonial Empire
History
- Established	1534
- Cartier planted the French flag at Gaspé Bay	24 July 1534
- Louisiana Purchase by Napoleon Bonaparte	30 April 1803
- Independence of Vanuatu	30 July 1980
- Disestablished	1946
Area	23,500,000 km2 (9,073,401 sq mi)
Today part of	Countries today  Algeria  Antarctica  Benin  Burkina Faso  Cambodia  Cameroon  Canada  Central African Republic  Chad  Comoros  Congo, Republic of the  Djibouti  Dominican Republic  France  Gabon  Guinea  Haiti  India  Ivory Coast  Laos  Lebanon  Libya  Madagascar  Mauritania  Mauritius  Mali  Morocco  Niger  Senegal 22x20px Seychelles  Syria  Togo  Tunisia  Vanuatu  Vietnam  United States
Warning: Value not specified for "continent"

The French colonial Empire was the set of territories that were under French rule primarily from the 17th century to the late 1960s. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the colonial empire of France was the second-largest in the world behind the British Empire. The French colonial empire extended over 12,347,000 km² (4,767,000 sq. miles) of land at its height in the 1920s and 1930s. Including metropolitan France, the total amount of land under French sovereignty reached 13,018,575 km² (4,980,000 sq. miles) at the time, almost 1/10 of the Earth's total land area. Its influence made French a widely-spoken colonial European language, along with English, Spanish, and Portuguese.

France, in rivalry with Britain for supremacy, began to establish colonies in North America, the Caribbean and India, following Spanish and Portuguese successes during the Age of Discovery. A series of wars with Britain during the 18th century and early to mid-19th century, which France lost, ended its colonial ambitions in these places, and with it what some historians term the "first" French colonial empire. In the 19th century, France established a new empire in Africa and Southeast Asia. In this period France's conquest of Empire in Africa was dressed up as a moral crusade. In 1886 Jules Ferry declared; "The higher races have a right over the lower races, they have a duty to civilize the inferior races." Full citizenship rights - assimilation - was offered, though in reality "assimilation was always receding [and] the colonial populations treated like subjects not citizens." ^[1]

Following World War I and especially World War II, anti-colonial movements began to challenge French authority. France unsuccessfully fought bitter wars in Vietnam and Algeria to keep its empire intact. By the end of the 1960s, many of France's colonies had gained independence, although some territories – especially islands and archipelagos – were integrated into France as overseas departments and territories. These total altogether 123,150 km² (47,548 sq. miles), which amounts to only 1% of the pre-1939 French colonial empire's area, with 2,685,705 people living in them in 2011. All of them enjoy full political representation at the national level, as well as varying degrees of legislative autonomy. (See Administrative divisions of France.)

First French colonial empire[link]

During the 16th century, the French colonization of the Americas began.

The Americas[link]

Animated map showing the growth and decline of the First and Second French colonial empires

French Northern America was known as 'Nouvelle France' or New France

Excursions of Giovanni da Verrazzano and Jacques Cartier in the early 16th century, as well as the frequent voyages of French boats and fishermen to the Grand Banks off Newfoundland throughout that century, were the precursors to the story of France's colonial expansion. But Spain's jealous protection of its foreign monopoly, and the further distractions caused in France itself in the later 16th century by the French Wars of Religion, prevented any constant efforts by France to settle colonies. Early French attempts to found colonies in 1612 at São Luís ("France Équinoxiale"), and in Brazil, in 1555 at Rio de Janeiro ("France Antarctique") and in Florida (including Fort Caroline in 1562) were not successful, due to a lack of official interest and to Portuguese and Spanish vigilance.^{[citation needed]}

The story of France's colonial empire truly began on 27 July 1605, with the foundation of Port Royal in the colony of Acadia in North America, in what is now Nova Scotia, Canada. A few years later, in 1608, Samuel De Champlain founded Quebec, which was to become the capital of the enormous, but sparsely settled, fur-trading colony of New France (also called Canada).^{[citation needed]}

New France had a rather small population, which resulted from more emphasis being placed on the fur trade rather than agricultural settlements. Due to this emphasis, the French relied heavily on creating friendly contacts with the local First Nations community. Without the appetite of New England for land, and by relying solely on Aboriginals to supply them with fur at the trading posts, the French composed a complex series of military, commercial, and diplomatic connections. These became the most enduring alliances between the French and the First Nation community. The French were, however, under pressure from religious orders to convert them to Catholicism.^{[citation needed]}

The French colonial empire in the Americas comprised New France (including Canada and Louisiana), French West Indies (including Saint-Domingue, Guadeloupe, Martinique, St. Lucia, Tobago and other islands) and French Guyana.

Although, through alliances with various Native American tribes, the French were able to exert a loose control over much of the North American continent, areas of French settlement were generally limited to the St. Lawrence River Valley. Prior to the establishment of the 1663 Sovereign Council, the territories of New France were developed as mercantile colonies. It is only after the arrival of intendant Jean Talon in 1665 that France gave its American colonies the proper means to develop population colonies comparable to that of the British. But there was relatively little interest in colonialism in France, which concentrated rather on dominance within Europe, and for most of its history, New France was far behind the British North American colonies in both population and economic development. Acadia itself was lost to the British in the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713.^{[citation needed]}

In 1699, French territorial claims in North America expanded still further, with the foundation of Louisiana in the basin of the Mississippi River. The extensive trading network throughout the region connected to Canada through the Great Lakes, was maintained through a vast system of fortifications, many of them centred in the Illinois Country and in present-day Arkansas.^{[citation needed]}

As the French empire in North America grew, the French also began to build a smaller but more profitable empire in the West Indies. Settlement along the South American coast in what is today French Guiana began in 1624, and a colony was founded on Saint Kitts in 1625 (the island had to be shared with the English until the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, when it was ceded outright). The Compagnie des Îles de l'Amérique founded colonies in Guadeloupe and Martinique in 1635, and a colony was later founded on Saint Lucia by (1650). The food-producing plantations of these colonies were built and sustained through slavery, with the supply of slaves dependent on the African slave trade. Local resistance by the indigenous peoples resulted in the Carib Expulsion of 1660.^{[citation needed]}

France's most important Caribbean colonial possession was established in 1664, when the colony of Saint-Domingue (today's Haiti) was founded on the western half of the Spanish island of Hispaniola. In the 18th century, Saint-Domingue grew to be the richest sugar colony in the Caribbean. The eastern half of Hispaniola (today's Dominican Republic) also came under French rule for a short period, after being given to France by Spain in 1795.^{[citation needed]}

Africa and Asia[link]

French colonial expansion was not limited to the New World. In Senegal in West Africa, the French began to establish trading posts along the coast in 1624. In 1664, the French East India Company was established to compete for trade in the east. Colonies were established in India in Chandernagore (1673) and Pondicherry in the Southeast (1674), and later at Yanam (1723), Mahe (1725), and Karikal (1739) (see French India). Colonies were also founded in the Indian Ocean, on the Île de Bourbon (Réunion, 1664), Île de France (Mauritius, 1718), and the Seychelles (1756).^{[citation needed]}

Colonial conflict with Britain[link]

In the middle of the 18th century, a series of colonial conflicts began between France and Britain, which ultimately resulted in the destruction of most of the first French colonial empire. These wars were the War of the Austrian Succession (1744–1748), the Seven Years' War (1756–1763), the War of the American Revolution (1778–1783), the French Revolutionary Wars (1793–1802) and the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815). It may even be seen further back in time to the first of the French and Indian Wars. This cyclic conflict is known as the Second Hundred Years' War.

Although the War of the Austrian Succession was indecisive – despite French successes in India under the French Governor-General Joseph François Dupleix and Europe under Marshal Saxe – the Seven Years' War, after early French successes in Minorca and North America, saw a French defeat, with the numerically superior British (over one million to about 50 thousand French settlers) conquering not only New France (excluding the small islands of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon), but also most of France's West Indian (Caribbean) colonies, and all of the French Indian outposts. While the peace treaty saw France's Indian outposts, and the Caribbean islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe restored to France, the competition for influence in India had been won by the British, and North America was entirely lost – most of New France was taken by Britain (also referred to as British North America, except Louisiana, which France ceded to Spain as payment for Spain's late entrance into the war (and as compensation for Britain's annexation of Spanish Florida). Also ceded to the British were Grenada and Saint Lucia in the West Indies. Although the loss of Canada would cause much regret in future generations, it excited little unhappiness at the time; colonialism was widely regarded as both unimportant to France, and immoral.^{[citation needed]}

Ratification of the treaty of Paris, 1783. The British delegation refused to pose for the picture.

Some recovery of the French colonial empire was made during the French intervention in the American Revolution, with Saint Lucia being returned to France by the Treaty of Paris in 1783, but not nearly as much as had been hoped for at the time of French intervention. True disaster came to what remained of France's colonial empire in 1791 when Saint Domingue (the Western third of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola), France's richest and most important colony, was riven by a massive slave revolt, caused partly by the divisions among the island's elite, which had resulted from the French Revolution of 1789. The slaves, led eventually by Toussaint Louverture and then, following his capture by the French in 1801, by Jean-Jacques Dessalines, held their own against French, Spanish, and British opponents, and ultimately achieved independence as Empire of Haiti in 1804 (Haiti became the first black republic in the world,^{[citation needed]} much earlier than any of the future African nations although it was not until the 19th century that Europeans began establishing colonies in Africa). In the meanwhile, the newly resumed war with Britain by the French, resulted in the British capture of practically all remaining French colonies. These were restored at the Peace of Amiens in 1802, but when war resumed in 1803, the British soon recaptured them. France's repurchase of Louisiana in 1800 came to nothing, as the final success of the Haitian revolt convinced Bonaparte that holding Louisiana would not be worth the cost, leading to its sale to the United States in 1803 (the Louisiana Purchase). The French attempt to establish a colony in Egypt in 1798–1801 was not successful.

Second French colonial empire[link]

At the close of the Napoleonic Wars, most of France's colonies were restored to it by Britain, notably Guadeloupe and Martinique in the West Indies, French Guiana on the coast of South America, various trading posts in Senegal, the Île Bourbon (Réunion) in the Indian Ocean, and France's tiny Indian possessions; though Britain finally annexed Saint Lucia, Tobago, the Seychelles, and the Île de France (Mauritius). In 1825 Charles X sent an expedition to Haïti, resulting in the Haiti indemnity controversy.^[2]

The true beginnings of the second French colonial empire, however, were laid in 1830 with the French invasion of Algeria, which was conquered over the next 17 years. During the Second Empire, headed by Napoleon III, an attempt was made to establish a colonial-type protectorate in Mexico, but this came to little, and the French were forced to abandon the experiment. This French intervention in Mexico lasted from 1861 to 1867.

In southeast Asia Napoleon III also established French control over Cochinchina (the southernmost part of modern Vietnam including Saigon) in 1867 and 1874, as well as a protectorate over Cambodia in 1863. Additionally, France had a sphere of influence during the 19th century and early 20th century in southern China, including a naval base at Kuangchow Bay (Guangzhouwan).^[3]

It was only after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871 and the founding of the Third Republic (1871–1940) that most of France's later colonial possessions were acquired. From their base in Cochinchina, the French took over Tonkin (in modern northern Vietnam) and Annam (in modern central Vietnam) in 1884–1885. These, together with Cambodia and Cochinchina, formed French Indochina in 1887 (to which Laos was added in 1893, and Kwang-Chou-Wan^[4] in 1900). In 1849, the French concession in Shanghai was established, lasting until 1946.^[5]

French colonies in 1891 (from Le Monde Illustré).
1. Panorama of Lac-Kaï, French outpost in China.
2. Yun-nan, in the quay of Hanoi.
3. Flooded street of Hanoi.
4. Landing stage of Hanoi

In China proper, French leased Guangzhouwan (in 1898), and had enclaves (concessions) in Shanghai, Guangzhou and Hankou (now part of Wuhan).^[6]

Influence was also expanded in North Africa, establishing a protectorate on Tunisia in 1881 (Bardo Treaty). Gradually, French control was established over much of Northern, Western, and Central Africa by the turn of the century (including the modern nations of Mauritania, Senegal, Guinea, Mali, Ivory Coast, Benin, Niger, Chad, Central African Republic, Republic of Congo), and the east African coastal enclave of Djibouti (French Somaliland). The explorer Colonel Parfait-Louis Monteil traveled from Senegal to Lake Chad in 1890–1892, signing treaties of friendship and protection with the rulers of several of the countries he passed through, and gaining much knowledge of the geography and politics of the region.^[7]

The Voulet-Chanoine Mission, a military expedition, was sent out from Senegal in 1898 to conquer the Chad Basin and unify all French territories in West Africa. This expedition operated jointly with two other expeditions, the Foureau-Lamy and Gentil missions, which advanced from Algeria and Middle Congo respectively. With the death of the Muslim warlord Rabih az-Zubayr, the greatest ruler in the region, and the creation of the Military Territory of Chad in 1900, the Voulet-Chanoine Mission had accomplished all its goals. The ruthlessness of the mission provoked a scandal in Paris. As a part of the Scramble for Africa, France had the establishment of a continuous west-east axis of the continent as an objective, in contrast with the British north-south axis. This resulted in the Fashoda incident, where an expedition led by Jean-Baptiste Marchand was opposed by forces under Lord Kitchener's command. The resolution of the crisis had a part in the bringing forth of the Entente Cordiale. During the Agadir Crisis in 1911, Britain supported France and Morocco became a French protectorate.^{[citation needed]}

At this time, the French also established colonies in the South Pacific, including New Caledonia, the various island groups which make up French Polynesia (including the Society Islands, the Marquesas, the Tuamotus), and established joint control of the New Hebrides with Britain.^{[citation needed]} The French made their last major colonial gains after World War I, when they gained mandates over the former Turkish territories of the Ottoman Empire that make up what is now Syria and Lebanon, as well as most of the former German colonies of Togo and Cameroon.

Civilizing mission[link]

A hallmark of the French colonial project in the late 19th century and early 20th century was the civilizing mission (mission civilisatrice), the principle that it was Europe's duty to bring civilization to benighted peoples. As such, colonial officials undertook a policy of Franco-Europeanization in French colonies, most notably French West Africa. Africans who adopted French culture, including fluent use of the French language and conversion to Christianity, were granted equal French citizenship, including suffrage. In 1848, residents of the "Four Communes" in Senegal were granted citizenship, which was reaffirmed by the Third Republic, leading to the 1914 election to the French Chamber of Deputies of Senegalese politician Blaise Diagne. By this time, however, French conservatives were denouncing such assimilationist policies as products of a dangerous liberal fantasy. In Morocco, France's newest colony, the French administration attempted to use urban planning and colonial education to prevent cultural mixing and to uphold the traditional society upon which the French depended for collaboration, with mixed results. After World War Two, the segregationist approach modeled in Morocco had been discredited by its connections to Vichyism, and assimilationism enjoyed a brief renaissance.^[8]

Critics of French colonialism gained an international audience in the 1920s, and often used documentary reportage and access to agencies such as the League of Nations and the International Labor Organization to make their protests heard. The main criticism was the high level of violence and suffering among the natives. Major critics included Albert Londres, Félicien Challaye, and Paul Monet, whose books and articles were widely read.^[9]

While the first stages of a takeover often involved the destruction of historic buildings in order to use the site for French headquarters, archaeologists and art historians soon engaged in systematic effort to identify, map and preserve historic sites, especially temples such as Angkor Wat, Champa ruins and the temples of Luang Prabang.^[10] Many French museums have collections of colonial materials. Since the 1980s the French government has opened new museums of colonial artifacts including the Musée du Quai Branly and the Cité Nationale de l’Histoire de l’Immigration, in Paris; the Centre Culturel Tjibaou in New Caledonia; and the Maison des Civilisations et de l’Unité Réunionnaise in Réunion.^[11]

Decolonisation[link]

The French colonial empire began to fall during the Second World War, when various parts were occupied by foreign powers (Japan in Indochina, Britain in Syria, Lebanon, and Madagascar, the US and Britain in Morocco and Algeria, and Germany and Italy in Tunisia). However, control was gradually reestablished by Charles de Gaulle. The French Union, included in the 1946 Constitution of 1946, replaced the former colonial Empire.

France was immediately confronted with the beginnings of the decolonisation movement. Paul Ramadier's (SFIO) cabinet repressed the Malagasy Uprising in 1947. In Asia, Ho Chi Minh's Vietminh declared Vietnam's independence, starting the First Indochina War. In Cameroun, the Union of the Peoples of Cameroon's insurrection, started in 1955 and headed by Ruben Um Nyobé, was violently repressed.

When the Indochina War ended with defeat and withdrawal in 1954, France became almost immediately involved in a new, and even harsher conflict in Algeria, the oldest major colony. Ferhat Abbas and Messali Hadj's movements had marked the period between the two wars, but both sides radicalised after the Second World War. In 1945, the Sétif massacre was carried out by the French army. The Algerian War started in 1954. Algeria was particularly problematic, due to the large number of European settlers (or pieds-noirs) who had settled there in the 125 years of French rule. Charles de Gaulle's accession to power in 1958 in the middle of the crisis ultimately led to the independence of Algeria with the 1962 Evian Accords. The Suez crisis in 1956 also displayed the limitations of French power, as its attempt to retake the canal along with the British was stymied when the United States did not back the plan.

The French Union was replaced in the new 1958 Constitution of 1958 by the French Community. Only Guinea refused by referendum to take part to the new colonial organisation. However, the French Community dissolved itself in the midst of the Algerian War; almost all of the other African colonies were granted independence in 1960, following local referendums. Some few colonies chose instead to remain part of France, under the status of overseas départements (territories). Critics of neocolonialism claimed that the Françafrique had replaced formal direct rule. They argued that while de Gaulle was granting independence on one hand, he was creating new ties through Jacques Foccart's help, his counsellor for African matters. Foccart supported in particular the Nigerian Civil War during the late 1960s.

Demographics[link]

Population between 1919 and 1940[link]

Population of the French Empire between 1919 and 1940

	1921	1926	1931	1936	1940
Metropolitan France	39,140,000	40,710,000	41,550,000	41,500,000	41,835,000
Colonies, protectorates, and mandates	55,556,000	59,474,000	64,293,000	69,131,000	68,888,000
Total	94,696,000	100,184,000	105,843,000	110,631,000	110,723,000
Percentage of the world population	5.02%	5.01%	5.11%	5.15%	4.81%
Sources: INSEE,[12] SGF[13]

French settlers[link]

Unlike elsewhere in Europe, France experienced relatively low levels of emigration to the Americas, with the exception of the Huguenots in British or Dutch colonies. France generally had close to the slowest natural population growth in Europe, and emigration pressures were therefore quite small. A small but significant emigration, numbering only in the tens of thousands, of mainly Roman Catholic French populations led to the settlement of the provinces of Acadia, Canada and Louisiana, both (at the time) French possessions, as well as colonies in the West Indies, Mascarene islands and Africa. In New France, Huguenots were banned from settling in the territory, and Quebec was one of the most staunchly Catholic areas in the world until the Quiet Revolution. The current French Canadian population, which numbers in the millions, is descended almost entirely from New France's small settler population.

On 31 December 1687 a community of French Huguenots settled in South Africa. Most of these originally settled in the Cape Colony, but have since been quickly absorbed into the Afrikaner population. After Champlain's founding of Quebec City in 1608, it became the capital of New France. Encouraging settlement was difficult, and while some immigration did occur, by 1763 New France only had a population of some 65,000.^[14] From 1713 to 1787, 30,000 colonists immigrated from France to the St. Domingue. In 1805, when the French were forced out of St. Domingue (Haiti) 35.000 French settlers were given lands in Cuba.^[15] Out of the 40,000 inhabitants on Guadeloupe, at the end of the 17th century, there were more than 26,000 blacks and 9,000 whites.^[16]

French law made it easy for thousands of colons, ethnic or national French from former colonies of North and West Africa, India and Indochina to live in mainland France. It is estimated that 20,000 colons were living in Saigon in 1945. 1.6 million European pieds noirs migrated from Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco.^[17] In just a few months in 1962, 900,000 French Algerians left Algeria in the largest relocation of population in Europe since World War II.^{[citation needed]} In the 1970s, over 30,000 French colons left Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge regime as the Pol Pot government confiscated their farms and land properties. In November 2004, several thousand of the estimated 14,000 French nationals in Ivory Coast left country after days of anti-white violence.^[18]

Apart from French-Canadians (Québécois and Acadians), Cajuns, and Métis other populations of French ancestry outside metropolitan France include the Caldoches of New Caledonia, the so-called Zoreilles, Petits-blancs with the Franco-Mauritian of various Indian Ocean islands and the Beke people of the French West Indies.

See also[link]

	History portal
	France portal
	Africa portal
	Southeast Asia portal
	Oceania portal
	North America portal
	Caribbean portal
	South America portal

• Evolution of the French Empire
• List of French possessions and colonies
• Index:-French colonial empire
• Index:-Former colonies of France
• Overseas departments and territories of France
• French colonisation of the Americas
• Francization
• French law on colonialism - (2005)
• Decolonization
• Global empire
• Organisation internationale de la Francophonie

Footnotes[link]

Further reading[link]

• Andrew, C. M.; Kanya-Forstner, A. S. (1976), "French Business and the French Colonialists", The Historical Journal 19 (4): 981–1000, DOI:10.1017/S0018246X00010803 .
• August, Thomas G. The Selling of the Empire: British and French Imperialist Propaganda, 1890-1940 (Contributions in Comparative Colonial Studies) (1985)
• Baumgart, Winfried. Imperialism: The Idea and Reality of British and French Colonial Expansion, 1880-1914 (1982)
• Betts, Raymond. Assimilation and Association in French Colonial Theory, 1890-1914 (2005) excerpt and text search
• Burrows, Mathew (1986), "'Mission civilisatrice': French Cultural Policy in the Middle East, 1860–1914", The Historical Journal 29 (1): 109–135, DOI:10.1017/S0018246X00018641 .
• Confer, Vincent (1964), "French Colonial Ideas before 1789", French Historical Studies 3 (3): 338–359, DOI:10.2307/285947 .
• Martin, Guy (1985), "The Historical, Economic, and Political Bases of France's African Policy", The Journal of Modern African Studies 23 (2): 189–208, DOI:10.1017/S0022278X00000148 .
• Newbury, C. W.; Kanya-Forstner, A. S. (1969), "French Policy and the Origins of the Scramble for West Africa", The Journal of African History 10 (2): 253–276, DOI:10.2307/179514 .
• Pakenham, Thomas (1991), The Scramble for Africa, 1876–1912, New York: Random House, ISBN 0-394-51576-5 .
• Petringa, Maria (2006), Brazza, A Life for Africa, Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse, ISBN 1-4259-1198-6 .
• Singer, Barnett, and John Langdon. Cultured Force: Makers and Defenders of the French Colonial Empire (2008)
• Segalla, Spencer (2009), The Moroccan Soul: French Education, Colonial Ethnology, and Muslim Resistance, 1912-1956, Lincoln, NE: Nebraska University Press, ISBN 978-0-8032-1778-2 .
• Thomas, Martin, ed. The French Colonial Mind, Volume 1: Mental Maps of Empire and Colonial Encounters (France Overseas: Studies in Empire and D) (2012); The French Colonial Mind, Volume 2: Violence, Military Encounters, and Colonialism (2012)

Historiography[link]

• Dubois, Laurent. "The French Atlantic," in Atlantic History: A Critical Appraisal, ed. by Jack P. Greene and Philip D. Morgan, (Oxford University Press, 2009) pp 137–61
• Emerson, Rupert (1969), "Colonialism", Journal of Contemporary History 4 (1): 3–16, DOI:10.1177/002200946900400101 .
• Greer, Allan. "National, Transnational, and Hypernational Historiographies: New France Meets Early American History," Canadian Historical Review, (2010) 91#4 pp 695-724, in Project MUSE
• Hodson, Christopher, and Brett Rushforth, "Absolutely Atlantic: Colonialism and the Early Modern French State in Recent Historiography," History Compass, (Jan 2010) 8#1 pp 101-117

External links[link]

• L'Afrique francophone
• Threats to the national independence of Thailand, from Thailand's Ministry of Foreign Affairs
• French Colonialism, lecture on the colonial period 1871 to 1914, via Open Yale Courses (45-min audio/video/text)
• Area Of French Empire in 1940
• The French in Indochina

v t e French overseas empire Former v t e Former French colonies in Africa and the Indian Ocean Maghreb Algeria Morocco Arguin Island Tunisia French West Africa Côte d'Ivoire Dahomey French Sudan Guinea Mauritania Niger Senegal Upper Volta   French Togoland James Island Albreda French Equatorial Africa Chad Gabon Middle Congo Ubangi-Shari French Cameroons French Comoros Anjouan Grande Comore Mohéli   French Somaliland (Djibouti) Madagascar Ile de France French Seychelles v t e Former French colonies in the Americas New France 1655–1763 Acadia Louisiana Canada Terre Neuve Inini Berbice Saint-Domingue Haiti Tobago Virgin Islands France Antarctique Equinoctial France French West India Company v t e Former French colonies in Asia and Oceania French India Chandernagor Coromandel Coast Madras Mahé Pondichéry Karaikal Yanaon Indochinese Union Cambodia Laos Vietnam Annam Cochinchina Tonkin Kouang-Tchéou-Wan, China French Mandate of Syria and Lebanon State of Syria Aleppo Damascus Alawite State Greater Lebanon Jabal al-Druze Sanjak of Alexandretta Oceania New Hebrides Vanuatu France–Asia relations French East India Company Present v t e Overseas departments and territories of France   Inhabited areas Overseas departments1 French Guiana Guadeloupe Martinique Réunion Mayotte2 Overseas collectivities French Polynesia St. Barthélemy St. Martin St. Pierre and Miquelon Wallis and Futuna Special status New Caledonia   Uninhabited areas Pacific Ocean Clipperton Island French Southern and Antarctic Lands Île Amsterdam Île Saint-Paul Crozet Islands Kerguelen Islands Adélie Land Scattered islands in the Indian Ocean Banc du Geyser4 Bassas da India4 Europa Island4 Glorioso Islands3, 4, 5 Juan de Nova Island4 Tromelin Island4, 5 1 Also known as overseas regions 2 Claimed by Comoros 3 Claimed by Madagascar 4 Claimed by Seychelles 5 Claimed by Mauritius

v t e Colonial empires      Australian  French  Ottoman  Belgian  German  Portuguese  British  Habsburg  Russian  Chinese  Italian  South African  Courland  Japanese  Spanish  Danish  New Zealand  Swedish  Dutch  Norwegian  United States Colonies in antiquity

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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[link]

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

• Italy and Posessions September 1939.png

  Italian Empire