# Have any countries given up territory eagerly? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 2, 2012, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-countries-given-up-territory-eagerly/636526 "2012-10-02T22:28:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2012, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-countries-given-up-territory-eagerly/636526/21 "2012-10-03T06:18:45Z")
Pakistan? ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2012, 7:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-countries-given-up-territory-eagerly/636526/22 "2012-10-03T07:07:21Z")
Do countries which decide they’re better off joining the next country over count? Guanacaste was independent for a very short time before asking to join Costa Rica. ---
**Author:** ![Malden\_Capell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/malden_capell/32/5274_2.png) [@Malden\_Capell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malden_Capell)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2012, 7:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-countries-given-up-territory-eagerly/636526/23 "2012-10-03T07:49:32Z")
After the independence of India much of the Empire lost value to Britain, and a lot of it was accelerated to independence as a means of saving London the cost of administering them. Russia seemed happy to sell Alaska on, and Napoleon was keen to get rid of the Louisiana Purchase. ---
**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:** [October 3, 2012, 9:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-countries-given-up-territory-eagerly/636526/24 "2012-10-03T09:22:03Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Some were unwilling, but by the end their colonies were granted independence peacefully. Not the Portuguese colonies, no. ---
**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:** [October 3, 2012, 9:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-countries-given-up-territory-eagerly/636526/25 "2012-10-03T09:23:25Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > During the apartheid era, South Africa declared several of the worst slums to be independent countries, so as to wash their hands of responsibility towards them or their residents. Not slums, poorer rural areas. ---
**Author:** ![Donnerwetter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Donnerwetter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Donnerwetter)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2012, 9:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-countries-given-up-territory-eagerly/636526/26 "2012-10-03T09:34:35Z")
The West Bank. This was a part of Jordan until 1967 when the Israelis occupied it. Jordan has since ceded it’s claim to the Palestinians. ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2012, 9:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-countries-given-up-territory-eagerly/636526/27 "2012-10-03T09:45:36Z")
> [@LinusK](#): > > Does the Great Concavity count? That was the first thing I thought of when reading the thread title… ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2012, 9:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-countries-given-up-territory-eagerly/636526/28 "2012-10-03T09:53:01Z")
Sweden and Norway splitting was a rare occurrence of “let’s be two smaller countries instead of one bigger country” with no killing. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2012, 10:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-countries-given-up-territory-eagerly/636526/29 "2012-10-03T10:56:15Z")
> [@Malden\_Capell](#): > > After the independence of India much of the Empire lost value to Britain, and a lot of it was accelerated to independence as a means of saving London the cost of administering them. > > Russia seemed happy to sell Alaska on, and Napoleon was keen to get rid of the Louisiana Purchase. To the extent that the UAE learnt about their Independence from BBC World Service. Seriously, the British did attempt to keep the empire for about a decade after 1947, but then realised that it would be impractial. Atlee wanted to have a new empire based in Africa. ---
**Author:** ![FuzzyOgre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@FuzzyOgre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FuzzyOgre)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2012, 11:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-countries-given-up-territory-eagerly/636526/30 "2012-10-03T11:26:13Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > Do countries which decide they’re better off joining the next country over count? Guanacaste was independent for a very short time before asking to join Costa Rica. Newfoundland was similar, joining Canada in 1949. They were actually independent for quite some time. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2012, 11:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-countries-given-up-territory-eagerly/636526/31 "2012-10-03T11:34:51Z")
Panama Canal Zone? ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2012, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-countries-given-up-territory-eagerly/636526/32 "2012-10-03T11:45:27Z")
The standout example is when Malaysia kicked Singapore out of the federation in 1965. At that point, Singapore was intending to stay part of Malaysia, but Kuala Lumpur didn’t want them. This situation is unique in the world as far as I know. People that didn’t want independence had it forced on them. The Bantustans of South Africa may be the next closest example, but are not at all analogous. They never were truly independent, and were never recognized by any other country and of course their sham existence soon collapsed. Singapore has always been a full member of the family of nations. The only example I know of of a colonial possession getting independence forced on them when they didn’t want it is Brunei. The UK had already decolonized everybody else and retooled for a noncolonialist future, and didn’t see any point in keeping Brunei around. They decolonized it for a clean sweep, against the wishes of the sultan. ---
**Author:** ![hibernicus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hibernicus/32/2802_2.png) [@hibernicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hibernicus)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2012, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-countries-given-up-territory-eagerly/636526/33 "2012-10-03T11:49:11Z")
The OP having already ruled out cases of decolonisation and the outcome of war or the threat of war, can I narrow the field even further by asking about cases where: 1. Sovereignty over some territory was transferred from country A to country B, 2. The land transferred was an integral part of Country A and not a dependency, 3. No country gained or lost independence in the process (i.e. Country A and B both already existed before the transfer and both continued to exist after the transfer), 4. No war or threat of war was involved. There are some 19th-century examples above that meet all these criteria (Alaska, Gadsden purchase). Any recent examples? The only example that comes to mind for me is incredibly tiny - a land swap on the Lithuania-Belarus border to deal with a Lithuanian exclave in Belarus. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2012, 11:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-countries-given-up-territory-eagerly/636526/34 "2012-10-03T11:51:45Z")
There was a Dutch border town or two that got switched over to Germany some years back. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2012, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-countries-given-up-territory-eagerly/636526/35 "2012-10-03T11:54:15Z")
Would giving up land willingly to the sea count? I would assume that some countries have given up land to the sea willingly as coastlines change. I know there was some talk about giving up New Orleans after the hurricane as well as talk about fighting mother nature with dikes and pumps to keep it. ---
**Author:** ![Donnerwetter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Donnerwetter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Donnerwetter)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2012, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-countries-given-up-territory-eagerly/636526/36 "2012-10-03T12:20:46Z")
The British handed over [Heligoland](http://www.ask.com/wiki/Heligoland) to Germany in 1890 which they possessed since 1814 (it had belonged to Denmark before that). ---
**Author:** ![Noone\_Special](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/noone_special/32/2863_2.png) [@Noone\_Special](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Noone_Special)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2012, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-countries-given-up-territory-eagerly/636526/37 "2012-10-03T12:23:46Z")
> [@Slithy\_Tove](#): > > Sweden and Norway splitting was a rare occurrence of “let’s be two smaller countries instead of one bigger country” with no killing. Another one (more recently) being the Czech Republic and Slovakia (formerly Czechoslovakia) The dismantling of the USSR (Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, etc…) probably count as well. ---
**Author:** ![Donnerwetter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Donnerwetter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Donnerwetter)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2012, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-countries-given-up-territory-eagerly/636526/38 "2012-10-03T12:48:42Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > There was a Dutch border town or two that got switched over to Germany some years back. The Netherlands occupied German territory after 1945. Most of the land was returned in 1963. But as late as 2002, the Netherlands ceded back a part of a road which runs through the border town of Selfkant. The [Wylerberg (Dutch name: Duivelsberg)](https://maps.google.com/maps?q=duivelsberg&hl=en&ll=51.818246,5.946972&spn=0.00772,0.021136&sll=51.799805,5.997505&sspn=0.061784,0.234489&t=h&hnear=Duivelsberg,+Berg+en+Dal,+Ubbergen,+Gelderland,+The+Netherlands&z=16) was annexed by the Netherlands and remains a part of the country to this day. This is the only territory Germany lost in the West after WW II (I’m almost sure about that). ---
**Author:** ![hibernicus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hibernicus/32/2802_2.png) [@hibernicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hibernicus)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2012, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-countries-given-up-territory-eagerly/636526/39 "2012-10-03T13:39:39Z")
> [@Donnerwetter](#): > > The Netherlands occupied German territory after 1945. Thanks for that; I never heard about before, and it’s a very interesting story. The original Dutch plan was extraordinarily ambitious - they planned to annex huge swathes of Germany including Cologne and Aachen, and deport the German inhabitants. Here’s the Wikipedia explanation: > **[Dutch annexation of German territory after the Second World War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_annexation_of_German_territory_after_World_War_II)** > > At the end of World War II, plans were made in the Netherlands to annex German territory as compensation for the damages caused by the war. In October 1945, the Dutch state asked Germany for 25 billion guilders in reparations. In February 1945 it had already been established at the Yalta Conference that reparations would not be given in monetary form. The plan which was worked out in most detail was the one made by Frits Bakker Schut \[nl\], and hence became known as the Bakker Schut Plan or Gro... ---
**Author:** ![toast\_pakora](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3ec8ea/32.png) [@toast\_pakora](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/toast_pakora)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2012, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-countries-given-up-territory-eagerly/636526/40 "2012-10-03T13:46:19Z")
> [@](#): > > The standout example is when Malaysia kicked Singapore out of the federation in 1965. At that point, Singapore was intending to stay part of Malaysia… Well, you get quite a different story from the Singaporean side. Let’s just say, each country wanted to preserve a particular ethnic majority. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-countries-given-up-territory-eagerly/636526.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-countries-given-up-territory-eagerly/636526.md?page=3)