In what years and how come the European map has changed over the centuries? Starting waaaay back when, around the 11-12th centuries? :rolleyes:
Well you see there was the Ottaman Empire, Italy was broken up into little states, England controlled part of France, Spain didn’t really exist…matter of fact there really weren’t nation states as far back as the 11th and 12th century. Then some nations formed, but then they had some wars that changed boundaries. That all lead up to the First World War which changed lots more boundaries and made people so mad they fought the Second World War and then after awhile the Soviet Union fell apart and all this kept the map makers pretty damn busy.
That’s the great thing about being a European cartographer. Guaranteed job security.
http://www.euratlas.com/time2.htm is a series of political maps of Europe from 1100 to 2000.
You can’t beat DreadCthulhu’s answer, really :). Those are very good maps.
In a literal sense, however, your question is so incredibly broad as to be unanswerable with anything short of a ( very large ) book(s). Political boundaries fluctuated constantly and for myriad reasons. Detailing them all, even in abbreviated fashion, is impossible in this format.
If you were interested in particular narrow region in a particular narrow time period, we could maybe take a shot.
- Tamerlane
Well how about major changes? Like with the Soviet Union, any specific wars and treaties that dramatically changed Europe?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/europe/02/euro_borders/html/default.stm
This should help you out. Google “history Europe borders” for lots more, as well as “history europe” or “history country” and pretty much any other combination you can think of.
I do not wish to accuse you of anything, but this has a “homework” feel to it to me, and I don’t want to write a paper for you on the major changes in europe throughout history. I am sure other posters agree. Europe has a long and complex history, and the many changes it has undergone has been the subject of countless books and documentaries - heck, any single European country has more history than can be summed up in a board post! Pick a narrower topic, and if you want to discuss it, feel free to present it here, but as is, you’re asking for a little much, IMHO.
([sub]yes, I know this is GQ, but whatever![/sub])
haha dont worry it is not a homework assignment! I was having a conversation with a friend the other day about how Europe has changed over the centuries but we could only come up with a few explanations so I turned to SD for help. I guess I should just have asked WHERE I could find all this information instead of asking such a broad question. Thanks for the help though~
Hmmm…Well the Baltic republics ( Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia ) which had been incorporated into Imperial Russia during the course of the 18th century declared independence in 1918, but were re-incorporated by the USSR as part of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in 1939 ( actual occupation in 1940 ) which delineated spheres of interest between Germany and the USSR. Bessarabia, Northen Bukovina, and Moldova was similarly acquired from Roumania at the same time. Also related the Treaty of Riga of 1921 ( not the one in 1920 that recognized Latvia’s independence ) ceded chunks of Byelorussuia and the Ukraine to Poland. That was nullified by the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and subsequent invasion of Poland by first Germany, then the USSR 1939. The subsequent treaty in 1945 that fixed the Soviet-Polish border to its present position.
Also related - Finland declared in dependence in 1917 ( it had been taken from Sweden in 1809 ). It also was to have been incorporated in the fallout of M-R, but its tenacious defense in the ‘Winter War’ 1939-1940 resulted in only about 10% of its territories being ceded. A further treaty in 1948, formally ending the hostilities of from WW II, ceded a few more smallish chunks of Finland.
Most of the rest of the Soviet gains are more usually cast as part of the Russian Civil War, which simply reaffirmed Soviet control over Imperial Russian possessions ( as in Central Asia ).
The post-WW II era, followed by the Warsaw Pact of 1955 of course gained a number of governmental sattelites in Eastern Europe, but only modest territorial increases ( partially detailed above ).
In 1991 the USSR dissolved into component republics.
- Tamerlane
My feelings are hurt because nobody acknowledged my outstanding summary of European history.
[ul]
[sup]I guess it is because I left Napoleon out.[/sup][/ul]
…and Conan III the Fat, Duke of Brittany ( 1112-1148 ) and his contemporary and overlord King Louis VI the Fat, of France ( 1108-1137 ), without whom any discussion of European history is empty and hollow :D.
- Tamerlane
“Conan the Fat” brings forth the image of a loinclothed sword-waving barbarian, who is also… well… fat.