1.

IDENTIFICATION AND PRESENTATION

This map represents the Colonial Empires in 1914. It is social, because it represents the colonial
expansion of the United States, Japan and the Russian Empire.

It dates from the year 1914 and the period represented is the Colonial Partition.

The territorial areas represented in the map are the ones of the British Empire, the USA Empire,
the French Empire, the Russian Empire and the Japanese Empire, as they were the main powers
in the world.

The symbols that appear in the key are colours and arrows. The colours tell us the territories of
every Empire, for example, France possessed Algeria and French West Africa, while the British
owned Canada, Egypt, Australia, India, etc.

The arrows tell us the movement of the three main Empires: the blue arrow for the USA, the red
one for Russia and the green one for Japan.

2. ANALYSIS

The major colonial empires of Europe were the British Empire and the French Empire. The British
territories were Great Britain, Canada, India, Australia, Egypt and Sudan, Nigeria, Kenya,
Rhodesia and South Africa. The French Empire spread over France, Morocco, Algeria, French
West Africa, French Equatorial Africa, Madagascar, the Guineas and Indochina.

The United States expanded to Alaska, the Philippines and some islands in South America. At the
same time, Russia extended its frontiers to territories as Turkestan, some territories near Japan
and other territories near the Ottoman Empire, pushing the frontiers.

But last but not least, Japan expanded to tome islands not far from its archipelago, to the Korean
peninsula and to other territories near the Russian Empire.

The largest colonial empire was the British Empire, not much wider than the Russian one. Africa
was the most affected continent concerning to the colonisation process, as many territories in
it were colonised by the French, British or even the Spanish Empire.

3. HISTORICAL CONTEXT

The main reasons were the geographic explorations and the scientific discoveries, that gave the
colonial empires more recognition. Also, each colony had important resources that the Empire
used for their own benefit.

The indigenous population suffered due to the colonisation process since it significantly changed
their way of living being exploited in semi-slavery to build road, railways, harbours, etc.

4. CONCLUSIONS

Yes, there is a link, because in that moment countries like India, Indochina and African countries
were being colonised and all their resources were used by the colonial countries for their own
use, not for improving the living conditions in the colonised country.

Examples of this policy are the African countries with their mines or India with its natural
resources.