Page 1 of 2 1 2 Last

When did the powers of Europe begin to expand and create colonies in the other continents? Does anyone know of a map showing the expansion of say... Great Britain or Spain?

Money. Trade and therefore money, basically, including the acquisition of resources like gold from the Americas and spices and silk from the far east. England and the Netherlands in particular were moving from agriculture to trade throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. And of course with money comes power and influence and eventually an Imperialist mindset, add to that the commonly held European view that it was 'the white man's destiny', God must have wanted it that way and you get an Imperial power like the Victorian British Empire or the Spanish under the Hapsburgs.

www.britishempire.co.uk provides good information on the Territories of the British Empire.


The highlighted land is all the territories of the British Empire. Red is the Empire after WW1. The Pink is the 13 colonies.

They got started right soon after Columbus and others had done some sailing. The Portugese may have been setting up small pockets of semi-permanent presence around India even earlier to serve as trading-posts and supply bases, but I don't really know about that.

However, aside from the Americas and the Caribbean most of the colonies stayed pretty small before the 1800s, really more trade enclaves and places to dump undesirables from home into than what is usually though of as "colonies". The natives usually could, and occasionally did, sweept them into the sea if they got sufficiently pissed off. But the pesky whiteys always came back if they had a motivation to - or another bunch of pesky whiteys would come instead to take over the trade.

Spain had most of South America, quite a large chunk of Central America, and I think even some of North America. They also had the Philippines, Cuba and some other colonies.

France had at least half of Africa, at one stage had some American states until Napoleon sold them, and that should be about it.

They all wanted money. Rare resources in Europe were common in other areas, which is why they were major money makers. The rare goods could be obtained cheaply from colonies, processed and made into goods, and then sold for a very high profit elsewhere. Also, all the important people, such as the monarchs, would want more power. Power corrupts.

Answer for France.
The process took roughly 480 years.
France started the exploration quite soon, under Francois the 1st (Francis the 1st, in English): From Jacques Cartier in 1543 who explored Terra Nova, followed by Champlain (Canada), Cavelier de la Salle (Louisiana & Mississippi) to de La Vérendrye who will go to the Rockies (1738), France will extend her expansion until Louis XV lost them to the British.
The French controlled territories were (more or less): Canada, Mississippi and Missouri basins and the Great Lakes.
Don’t forget the French Guyana in South America. And some islands in the Caribbean.
You can add India, half of the territory until the lost to the English except 5 towns. Louis the XV wasn’t the best Statesman of his time.

The next wave of the French expansion took place in the 19th Century after the Franco-Prussian War:
North Africa (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia),
West Africa (Benin, Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, Guinea, Mali –French Sudan-, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal and Togo),
Equatorial Africa (Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Gabon, Republic of Congo),

Indian Ocean: Comoros, Madagascar, , Mayotte, Reunion, and few islands

Red Sea: Djibouti and Yemen (Cheik-Saïd peninsula).

East Asia: Cambodia, China (leased territory of Kwan-Chou-Wan), French concessions (Shangai, Guangzhou, Tianjian and Hankou), Laos and Vietnam.

You can add various Protectorates and other little things in the Middle East, Lebanon, Syria and a part of Turkey (Sandjak of Alexandretta).

It is a summary.

Didnt Britain control 1/3 of all the land of the world at one time. I heard that somewhere.

I think it's closer to a quarter, but yes, the British Empire was pretty large indeed. A quarter of the world's population lived in the empire as well.

God Gold Glory

Add Spices and Territory, and we'll have the most accurate and concise list ever complied.

God Spices Gold Territory Glory!

Huzzah for the British Empire

Its another feet, that the British Empire managed to do it with a relatively small (but supremely elite) military.

Some would say it started with the Phoenicians who it is claimed by some had colonies in the Americas a thousand years or more before Columbus.
The Vikings seem to have had a colony on the North East bit of North America at some time.
There are maps that predate Columbus which show bits of the East coast of the Americas.
Then there are all the Greek colonies that Alexander founded...

They didn't really need the military, they just won over the natives I heard.

The Phoenicans did have some famous explorers such as Hanno, but I doubt that they could reach America with the ships of the dark ages. The Vikings did have a colony, but they got driven off by natives. (was it in Canada?)

The Chinese had also sailed to America long before Colombus, but they never bothered to have colonies. They just never had any wish to make an Empire.

The Vikings spent at least a couple of seasons in Newfoundland and possibly further south. The remains of a typical Norse settlement have been excavated in Newfoundland at L'Anse aux Meadows. The site had typical Norse ember pits and longhouses, as well as obvious Norse tools such as a soapstone spindle whorl and bronze pins. They didn't get along with the natives, however; and soon left. They called the natives skraelings in the sagas about Vinland. The sagas tell of Lief Erikson's brother Thorvald being killed by a skraeling arrow in Vinland.

On the subject of the Chinese exploration, Chinese admiral Zheng He is believed by some to have reached the west coast of the Americas; but there is no supportable evidence of such. He certainly sailed much of the Southwest Pacific and Indian Oceans and went as far as Africa in exploratory missions for the Chinese emperor. It's the sailing east to the Americas that is controversial.

The Phoenicians making it to America is more controversial still. Any storied Phoenician exploration of the Americas is pure supposition. They did manage to visit the British Isles, certainly; and possibly went down the west coast of Africa. In their ships, which were coastal traders, making an Atlantic crossing would be improbable at best.

Indeed, it is the largest Empire in History

I always had the impression that the Russian Empire was the largest in Size... just not in terms of population and economics. That honor goes to the British Empire.

looks like those Mongols just pipped us for size, but we certainly have the honours in numbers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World%27s_largest_empires. The puny Russians are only just over 50% as big.

Why improbable? The ancient polynesians could sail 4,000 miles from their South Pacific Islands to the Easter Island and Hawaii. So why couldn't the Phoenicians, with how much better ship technology they had, sail the two thousand miles from the edges of their empire in Africa to, say, Brazil. How is that improbable?

Siberia doesn't quite count though.. since it was empty. It's like claiming that the Antarctic is part of your Empire. Even if everyone agrees, it won't matter, because nobody lives there and it's not useful land in any way (at least not in any obvious way). It just serves to make the empire appear larger on a map.

Another funny thing about the Mongol Empire: because Kublai Khan lived in Beijing, the capital, many Chinese claim that the Mongolian Empire as their Empire. So, applying that logic elsewhere, does that mean that the Roman Empire suddenly became the Ravennan Empire when it changed its capital temporarily?

Hmm... The British Empire entry says it is the largest with over 37 million, and the Mongol Empire entry says it is the largest with under 38 million, so they both had above 37 million but below 38 million

And the land mass seems to fluctuate as one goes down the different list. Britain goes from 37 million to 36 million, and Mongols go from 38 million to 35 million...

The matter is quite moot, it seems...

Due to the nature of the wind systems as one rounds the Bight of Benin (i.e. leaving the Trade Winds route) as well as the Atlantic currents, I would surmise that it would probably have been easier for the Carthaginians to cross the ocean to Central or South America than it was to round Africa, which is a far more difficult enterprise. I'm sceptical about the latter.

BTW, I'm not saying that they did cross the Atlantic!

So you're suggesting that they travelled close to either of the Poles or sailed around the large African-Asian-European landmass and then crossed the Pacific? Remember that the Phoenicans came from warm climes..

Sorry, don't understand you! What's all this talk of the Pacific? I was only saying that it was possibly easier for the Carthaginians to cross the Atlantic than to sail round Africa, a claim which some make for the semi-mythical Hanno.

We know they got to the Canary Isles (Isles of the Blessed), which are fairly easy to reach as one exits into the Atlantic through the Pillars of Hercules. Natural Trade Winds and Atlantic currents can then take a ship relatively speedily to South America. However, fighting down the West Coast of Africa against contrary winds (or no winds!) is a whole different prospect. It took the Portuguese a long time by incremental steps, in far superior ships, to pull that achievement off.

Bah we still had the best empire, and will again

I hate colonialism. Thanks a lot you European ********.

I didn't say it was impossible, just improbable. Yes, the Pacific islanders managed great feats of navigation - in an entirely different kind of vessel, and their expansion across the Pacific was almost entirely one-way. The Phoenicians used shore-hugging coastal vessels which are entirely unsuited to crossing the Atlantic. The earliest ocean-going vessels capable of sucyh large ocean crossings were the Viking longships and the Polynesian large outriggers.

I don't know if you've ever been on the North Atlantic in a ship. It's nothing like coastal sailing. Even in the summer, during fair weather, swells can easily top 20 feet in mid-ocean. When I experienced it for the first time, I was in a 535 foot long ship - a big vessel. We still had 20-30 degree rolls in the middle of May. In August it was only slightly better, and then you face tropical storms.

The Phoenicians might have managed it - barely - going one way, if the north equatorial current and the northeast trade winds were perfectly favorable and they encountered no storms (tropical storms are likely in the summer, worse weather in the winter). They couldn't then get back. Not cross-current. Not without better ocean-going technology than they had in their coastal traders.

So, that's why I say it's improbable. Possible but unlikely.

I agree with you completely Aenlic. I was trying to assert that a trip around Africa would have probably been even more difficult for the Phoenicians.

Oy. Sorry about that. Quoted the wrong person in my reply. You're absolutely correct about rounding Africa. The Cape of Good Hope is very badly named. The Benguela current on the Atlantic side runs smack into the Agulhas current on the Indian Ocean side in opposite directions before the former turns north up the western coast and the later turns south toward Antarctica. The opposing currents make a huge mess of the seas. Add in seasonal bad weather and the trade winds which flow in the opposite direction of the Agulhas current heading east from Cape Elizabeth and things are just plain nasty there. The Portuguese sailors did a phenomenal thing making that crossing. I suspect that the conditions at that point may have been what kept Zheng He's fleet from making the crossing going the opposite way.

And to get back on topic...

I read somewhere that the major impetus for Germany's late 19th century colonial efforts was a desperate need for raw materials, for things like fertilizer. It was also one of the minor and often forgotten reasons for WWI, Germany being squeezed out of the global race for raw materials from colonies. Colonial aspirations were certainly the main reason for the Spanish-American War. How many other conflicts between European powers resulted from colonial beginnings? Or were colonial conflicts just the excuse used?

Page 1 of 2 1 2 Last