# Any Country Never Taken Over? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 23, 2018, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-country-never-taken-over/809389 "2018-02-23T03:38:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Jim\_B](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jim_b/32/4338_2.png) [@Jim\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_B)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2018, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-country-never-taken-over/809389/1 "2018-02-23T03:38:04Z")
The United States is not the only country where a more powerful power came in, and took it away from the original inhabitants. It holds true for almost every country! Take Great Britain. First the Celts were there. Then the Anglo-Saxons came in, and took it from them. Then the Normans conquered the island in 1066. (I shutter to think who the Celts took it from.) This holds true for other places too. Take the Lapps. They are the natives to Scandinavia. So I guess at some point in history, they must have been invaded too. And don’t get me started on Canada and Mexico. My question is simply this: Is there **any** country, \*\*\*anywhere \*\*\* that wasn’t simply taken over at some time in their history, by an invading force? And I guess implicit in that, is that one people always occupied the same land. Or maybe they moved out, and it’s vacant now. I don’t know. But my first question certainly is enough, to understand what I am getting at. 🙂 🙂 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2018, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-country-never-taken-over/809389/2 "2018-02-23T03:47:42Z")
Japan, possibly? There must have been migration into the country at some point, but I don’t know if we have any evidence of successive waves of migration of different ethnicities, with one culture supplanting another. And the political history of Japan consists of the emergence of distinct kingdoms and principalities, which are gradually united into one political entity under an emperor, whose descendants have reigned ever since. Obviously Japan suffered a military defeat in 1945 (and quite possibly at other times) but that didn’t result in the country being “taken over”. ---
**Author:** ![glowacks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/glowacks/32/5548_2.png) [@glowacks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glowacks)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2018, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-country-never-taken-over/809389/3 "2018-02-23T04:14:58Z")
North Sentinel Island? Might not be a country, but it has de facto autonomy, is only recognized as part of India by the international community (not by its own inhabitants) and has never actually been conquered. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2018, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-country-never-taken-over/809389/4 "2018-02-23T04:18:43Z")
The Japanese drove the Ainu out of Honshu. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2018, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-country-never-taken-over/809389/5 "2018-02-23T04:21:08Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > There must have been migration into the country at some point, but I don’t know if we have any evidence of successive waves of migration of different ethnicities, with one culture supplanting another. The [Yayoi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yayoi_period)are thought to have migrated into Japan from the mainland and replaced or absorbed the earlier Jomon people starting around 300 BC or earlier. > [@](#): > > [T]here is archaeological evidence that supports the idea that there was an influx of farmers from the continent to Japan that absorbed or overwhelmed the native hunter-gatherer population.[21] ---
**Author:** ![74westy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/74westy/32/3950_2.png) [@74westy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/74westy)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2018, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-country-never-taken-over/809389/6 "2018-02-23T04:53:31Z")
Am I to understand that there was no one in North America between the Rio Grande and the 49th parallel prior to 1776? ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2018, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-country-never-taken-over/809389/7 "2018-02-23T04:56:46Z")
> [@74westy](#): > > Am I to understand that there was no one in North America between the Rio Grande and the 49th parallel prior to 1776? You would understand that only if you had completely misread the OP. The OP says the contrary: that the US was taken from its original inhabitants. (Well, actually, areas that became the US were taken from their original inhabitants by Britain, France, Spain, the Netherlands, and Russia.) ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2018, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-country-never-taken-over/809389/8 "2018-02-23T05:32:08Z")
Iceland was uninhabited when settled by the Norse ancestors of the people who now occupy it. (There had been earlier settlements by Irish people, but those settlements seem to have disappeared before the Norse arrived.) From the mid-13th century to 1944 it was united with Norway and, later, Denmark, but this wasn’t really because the Norwegians “took over”; rather, the Icelandic chieftains agreed to the union as a way of bringing stability to Iceland, which was plagued by civil wars. Iceland’s separate legislature and courts continued to function. Still, some centuries later,after Norway and Iceland had in turn been absorbed into the Kalmar Union under Denmark, the Danish kings did use their position to establish absolute monarchy in Iceland and, on the basis that this was not an Icelandic monarch, you could say that over several hundred years Iceland was very slowly taken over by another country. The union of Scotland and England in 1707 to form the Kingdom of Great Britain didn’t involve England taking over Scotland in a political or military sense, even though England was very much the dominant part of the new kingdom. But I’m pretty sure Scotland has been successfully invaded/settled before that. The first permanent settlement in Bermuda was established by the English in 1612, and is has been a British colony/overseas territory ever since. It has never been taken over by any other country. It now has internal self-government. You could quibble, I suppose, over whether Bermuda is a “country”. São Tomé e Príncipe was uninhabited when settled by the Portuguese in the fifteenth century. It remained a Portuguese possession without interruption until becoming independent in 1975, and it has been an independent country ever since. Unless you consider the initial settlement to be a “taking over”, I think São Tomé e Príncipe has to be a strong candidate for a country which has never been taken over by another country. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2018, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-country-never-taken-over/809389/9 "2018-02-23T05:40:25Z")
Iceland might qualify. Gaelic monks were there before the Norse settlement, but they weren’t there when the Norse settled. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2018, 8:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-country-never-taken-over/809389/10 "2018-02-23T08:23:10Z")
> [@Jim\_B](#): > > Take Great Britain. First the Celts were there. Then the Anglo-Saxons came in, and took it from them. Then the Normans conquered the island in 1066. (I shutter to think who the Celts took it from.) …and the Romans, don’t forget the Romans! Though I’m reliably informed that they did very little for us. ---
**Author:** ![Shakester](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shakester/32/437_2.png) [@Shakester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shakester)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2018, 9:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-country-never-taken-over/809389/11 "2018-02-23T09:35:25Z")
Abyssinia AKA Ethiopia. The Italians gave it a try, but failed. Never successfully colonised by anyone. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2018, 9:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-country-never-taken-over/809389/12 "2018-02-23T09:57:30Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > You would understand that only if you had completely misread the OP. The OP says the contrary: that the US was taken from its original inhabitants. (Well, actually, areas that became the US were taken from their original inhabitants by Britain, France, Spain, the Netherlands, and Russia.) I believe the USA took Idaho, where the flag of no other nation had ever flown before. ---
**Author:** ![Delicious](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/dbc845/32.png) [@Delicious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Delicious)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2018, 10:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-country-never-taken-over/809389/13 "2018-02-23T10:08:44Z")
Antarctica? Don’t think it’s technically a country but no-one’s taken it over. ---
**Author:** ![Channing\_Idaho\_Banks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/channing_idaho_banks/32/250_2.png) [@Channing\_Idaho\_Banks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Channing_Idaho_Banks)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2018, 10:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-country-never-taken-over/809389/14 "2018-02-23T10:50:08Z")
I was going to say Thailand. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2018, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-country-never-taken-over/809389/15 "2018-02-23T11:44:54Z")
> [@Shakester](#): > > Abyssinia AKA Ethiopia. The Italians gave it a try, but failed. Never successfully colonised by anyone. Never colonized (by Western powers, parts of it have been conquered, if not colonized, by various Islamic empires), but _definitely_ not [untouched](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Ethiopia) or just the first inhabitants anymore. I mean, there’s a distinct Jewish influence that wasn’t locally derived, for one. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2018, 11:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-country-never-taken-over/809389/16 "2018-02-23T11:48:51Z")
> [@Delicious](#): > > Antarctica? > > Don’t think it’s technically a country but no-one’s taken it over. [Yes they have](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_claims_in_Antarctica) (to the extent that’s practically possible). ---
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2018, 11:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-country-never-taken-over/809389/17 "2018-02-23T11:50:29Z")
What about Basque? ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2018, 11:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-country-never-taken-over/809389/18 "2018-02-23T11:56:06Z")
> [@Channing\_Idaho\_Banks](#): > > I was going to say Thailand. I second this reply! ---
**Author:** ![Banksiaman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banksiaman/32/3334_2.png) [@Banksiaman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banksiaman)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2018, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-country-never-taken-over/809389/19 "2018-02-23T11:59:59Z")
If Iceland counts then so does Pitcairn. An initial Polynesian settlement at some point had ended when the Bounty mutineers and Polynesians arrived in 1790. When they were eventually found they accepted British overlordship, but essentially on their own terms. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2018, 12:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-country-never-taken-over/809389/20 "2018-02-23T12:02:08Z")
Unlike Iceland, Pitcairn isn’t a country, it’s a territory of Britain. Otherwise lots of little isolated island territories would doubtless qualify. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-country-never-taken-over/809389.md?page=2)