From North America to Africa, passing through Latin America and Oceania, no continent escaped the vast wave of European colonisation. Almost the entire globe experienced some form of European influence, as illustrated by a 2015 map from the American media outlet Vox, which includes “mandates” and “protectorates” as extensions of colonial rule. Today, after numerous wars of independence, this near-total European grip has left profound marks both on populations and on the geopolitical map of the world. Yet five countries succeeded in evading this fate.

Colonised by other powers

The five countries regarded as never having been colonised are Liberia in Africa, North Korea, South Korea, Japan and Thailand. But how did they manage to avoid European colonisers?

In Liberia’s case, its colonial past is complex. The country was a victim of the triangular slave trade between the 16^th and 18^th centuries and declared independence in 1847, following the emancipation of slaves by the United States. The Americans deported 12,000 freed slaves there, effectively compelling European powers to refrain from touching Liberia. If the African state may in some way be considered colonised by the United States, which used it as a resettlement territory for freed African Americans, it was nonetheless never under European influence.

Japan and Korea (then unified) resisted European invasion thanks to their armies, already modernised for the 19^th century. Owing to “the strength of their states, their diplomacy, their isolationist policies and perhaps also their geographical position”, Vox summarises, they succeeded in resisting.

As for Thailand – formerly the Kingdom of Siam – it was above all its geographical location that ensured its freedom. Positioned between Burma (under British control) and French Indochina (present-day Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia), it served as a buffer zone between the two powers, which jointly decided to leave it independent. However, both Korea and Thailand were later colonised by regional Japanese power in the early 20^th century.

Ambiguous cases

For some states, such as Ethiopia – often cited as the sixth country never to have been colonised by Europe – precision is required. Ethiopia was annexed by Italy between 1935 and 1941, after Italy had already colonised neighbouring Eritrea and Somalia. Some years earlier, in 1886, and after annexing several Ethiopian territories, Italy attempted to invade the country but was repelled by the Ethiopian army, then one of the few remaining independent African powers.

Six years later, Mussolini, the fascist dictator ruling Italy, sought to restore his nation’s honour and dispatched vast contingents of Italian troops to Ethiopia via the Suez Canal in 1932. The Ethiopian army was defeated in 1935 and regained independence only after six years of brutal occupation, aided by British forces.

According to Vox’s map, other countries were never fully colonised, such as Iran, whose oil fields were controlled by Britain and Russia, or Turkey and Saudi Arabia. The former was divided among the European victors of the First World War, but they were almost immediately pushed back by Turkish nationalists. The latter was partially dominated by the Ottoman Empire and later by the British until 1932, though large parts of its territory remained untouched.

See, Ces cinq pays sont les seuls au monde a n’avoir jamais ete colonises ou sous influence européenne

Gbarna – Liberia © Photo GP