How Every Country Became Independent (1776–2026)

In 1776, Spain, Portugal and Britain ruled almost all of the Americas, and the Ottoman Empire stretched from the Balkans to North Africa. Watch every country on Earth break free, one by one: the United States in 1776, Latin America in the 1820s, the Scramble for Africa, the fall of four empires in 1918, India and Pakistan in 1947, 17 African countries in 1960 alone, the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, and South Sudan in 2011. Each colony is colored by the empire that ruled it. When it wins independence, it flashes and turns grey. At the end, every country is colored by the empire it broke away from. ⏱ Chapters 0:00 1776: A World of Empires 0:23 Latin America Breaks Away 0:47 Greece 1:06 The Scramble for Africa 1:45 Four Empires Fall (1918) 2:55 India and Pakistan (1947) 3:25 The Year of Africa (1960) 5:15 Portugal Lets Go (1975) 6:19 The Soviet Union Falls Apart (1991) 7:05 South Sudan, the Newest Country 7:16 Who Each Country Broke Free From 📊 Data & method • "Independence" here means breaking free from foreign rule. Countries that were never colonized (like Thailand or Japan) count as independent from the start. • Dates are the independence day each country celebrates. Where a declaration was followed by reconquest, we use the day foreign rule actually ended (Venezuela 1821, Mexico 1821, Greece 1830). • Dominions count as independent when they became self-governing: Canada 1867, Australia 1901, New Zealand 1907, South Africa 1910. • Borders are today's. A country split between several rulers is shown under the main one (partitioned Poland under Russia). • The ranking shows land ruled outside each empire's homeland, measured with today's borders. • Disputed territories (Western Sahara, Palestine) are shown in grey. Hong Kong and Macau returned to China; they are not counted as independent. Sources: COLDAT – Colonial Dates Dataset (Becker 2019) via Our World in Data; Wikipedia, List of national independence days; Natural Earth (borders); flagcdn.com (flags). 🖼 Chapter images (Wikimedia Commons) 1975-06-25 Portugal Lets Go: Unknown author · CC BY 4.0 · https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Re... 1991-08-20 The Soviet Union Falls Apart: Laimonis Stīpnieks · CC BY-SA 4.0 · https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ba... 2026-01-01 Not Quite Over: Kenny McFly · CC BY-SA 4.0 · https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nu... 1776-01-01 A World of Empires, 1776-07-04 The First to Break Free, 1804-01-01 Haiti, 1821-09-15 Latin America Breaks Away, 1830-02-03 Greece, 1884-11-15 The Scramble for Africa, 1918-11-11 Four Empires Fall, 1947-08-15 India and Pakistan, 1960-01-01 The Year of Africa, 2011-07-09 The Newest Country: public domain