View source for Colonization

{{short description|Establishment and development of settlements by people or animals}}
{{Distinguish|text=[[Colonisation (biology)]], the process by which species spread to new areas}}
{{Other uses}}
{{More citations needed|date=November 2025}}

[[file:Descolonización - Decolonization.png|thumb|right|475px|Map of the year each country or territory achieved [[List of sovereign states by date of formation|independence]].]]
{{politics}}
'''Colonization''' ([[British English]]: '''colonisation''') is a process of establishing control  over areas or [[people]]s for foreign people to advance their trade, cultivation, exploitation and possibly [[settler|settlement]]. Colonization functions through establishing a differentiation between the area and people of the colonized and colonizers, establishing [[metropole]]s, [[coloniality]] and possibly outright [[Colony|colonies]]. Colonization is commonly pursued and maintained by, but distinct from, [[imperialism]], [[mercantilism]], or [[colonialism]].<ref name="UnLeading 2022 k996">{{cite web | title =Colonialism, Coloniality and Settler Colonialism | website =UnLeading | date =August 11, 2022 | url =https://www.yorku.ca/edu/unleading/systems-of-oppression/coloniality-and-settler-colonialism/#:~:text=Colonization%20did%20not%20only%20occur,(Mignolo%20%26Walsh%2C%202018). | access-date =December 27, 2023}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |doi=10.4324/9780203992586 |date=1997 |author=[[Marc Ferro]] |title=Colonization |page=1 |publisher=Routledge |isbn= 9781134826537
 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=0QOIAgAAQBAJ
 | quote = Colonization is associated with the occupation of a foreign land, with its being brought under cultivation, with the settlement of colonists. If this definition of the term "colony" is used, the phenomenon dates from the [[Greek colonisation|Greek period]]. Likewise we speak of Athenian, then Roman 'imperialism'."
}}
</ref><ref name="Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary at OxfordLearnersDictionaries.com">
{{cite web | title=colonization noun - Definition, pictures, pronunciation and usage notes | website=Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary at OxfordLearnersDictionaries.com | url=https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/colonization?q=colonization | access-date=2023-03-29}}</ref><ref name="u508">{{cite web | title=Different Paths: Colonization is More than Exploitation | website=LPE Project | date=October 20, 2020 | url=https://lpeproject.org/blog/different-paths-colonization-is-more-than-exploitation/ | access-date=July 15, 2024}}</ref> [[Conquest]] can take place without colonization,{{efn | As for example with German conquests in western and northern Europe in 1940.}} but a conquering process may often result in or from migration and colonizing.<ref>
For example:
{{cite book
 |last1                = Bartlett
 |first1               = Robert
 |author-link1         = Robert Bartlett (historian)
 |date                 = 27 February 2003
 |orig-date            = 1993
 |title                = The Making of Europe: Conquest, Colonization and Cultural Change 950 - 1350
 |url                  = https://books.google.com/books?id=9R0fmcWVJAgC
 |edition              = reprint
 |publication-place    = London
 |publisher            = Penguin UK
 |isbn                 = 9780141927046
 |access-date          = 17 July 2025
 |quote                = This book approaches the history of Europe in the High Middle Ages [...] by concentrating on conquest, colonization and associated cultural change in Europe and the Mediterranean in the period 950-1350. It analyzes the establishment of states by conquest and the peopling of distant countries by immigrants along the peripheries of the continent: English colonialism in the [[Celtic countries|Celtic world]], the [[Ostsiedlung|movement of Germans into eastern Europe]], the Spanish [[Reconquista|Reconquest]] and the activities of [[crusade]]rs and colonists in the eastern Mediterranean.
}}
</ref>{{efn | As in the [[Migration Period]] in western Eurasia.}} The term "colonization" is sometimes used synonymously with the word "settling", as with [[Colonisation (biology)|colonization in biology]].

[[Settler colonialism]] is a type of colonization structured and enforced by the settlers directly, while their or their ancestors' metropolitan country (''metropole'') maintains a connection or control through the settler's activities. In settler colonization, a minority group rules either through the [[cultural assimilation|assimilation]] or oppression of the existing inhabitants,<ref>{{cite book |last1= Howe |first1= Stephen |title= Empire: A Very Short Introduction |date= 2002 |publisher= Oxford University Press |location= United States |isbn= 9780191604447 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=04lJ4TshmxcC&q=colonisation%20central%20empire%3A%20A%20Very%20Short%20Introduction&pg=PT52 | quote = When colonization takes place under the protection of clearly colonial political structures, it may most handily be called '''settler colonialism'''. This often involves the settlers entirely dispossessing earlier inhabitants, or instituting legal or other structures which systematically disadvantage them.}}</ref><ref name=EI>{{cite book |last1= Howe |first1= Stephen |title= Empire: A Very Short Introduction |date= 2002 |publisher= Oxford University Press |location= United States|pages= 21–31}}</ref>{{request quotation|date=May 2025}} or by establishing itself as the demographic majority through [[exile|driving away]], displacing or [[genocide|outright killing]] the existing people, as well as through [[immigration]] and births of metropolitan as well as other settlers.

The [[History of Australia (1788–1850)|European colonization of Australia]], [[History of New Zealand|New Zealand]], and other places in [[Oceania]] was fueled by explorers, and colonists often regarding the encountered landmasses as {{lang | la | [[terra nullius]]}} ("empty land", or literally "nobody's land" in Latin).<ref name=PG>{{cite book |last1= Painter |first1= Joe |last2= Jeffrey |first2= Alex |title= Political Geography |date= 2009 |publisher= SAGE Publications Ltd. |location= London, GBR |page= 169}}</ref> This resulted in laws and ideas such as [[Mexico]]'s 1824 [[General Colonization Law]] and the [[United States]]' [[manifest destiny]] doctrine which furthered colonization.

==Etymology==
The term ''colonization'' is derived from the Latin words {{lang|la|colere}} ("to cultivate, to till"),<ref name="OED">{{cite book|title=Oxford English Dictionary Second Edition on CD-ROM (v. 4.0) |year= 2009|publisher=Oxford University Press}}</ref> {{lang|la|colonia}} ("a landed estate", "a farm") and {{lang|la|colonus}} ("a tiller of the soil", "a farmer"),<ref name="Lewis79">{{cite book|title=A Latin Dictionary |url=https://archive.org/details/latindictionaryf00lewi |author1=Charlton T. Lewis |author2=Charles Scott |year= 1879|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-864201-5 }}</ref> then by extension "to inhabit".<ref name="Steele03">{{cite book|title=The Colonization of Unfamiliar Landscapes |author1=Marcy Rockman |author2=James Steele |year= 2003|publisher=Routledge|isbn=0-415-25606-2}}</ref> Someone who engages in colonization, i.e. the agent noun, is referred to as a ''colonizer'', while the person who gets colonized, i.e. the object of the agent noun or absolutive, is referred to as a ''colonizee'',<ref>Riordan, John P. STAFF COLL FORT LEAVENWORTH KS SCHOOL OF ADVANCED MILITARY STUDIES, 2008.</ref> ''colonisee'' or the ''colonised''.<ref>Freeman, Luke. "Lesley A. Sharp. The Sacrificed Generation: Youth, History, and the Colonized Mind in Madagascar. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002. xvii+ 377 pp. Photographs. Maps. Appendixes. Glossary. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $65.00. Cloth. $27.50. Paper." African Studies Review 46.2 (2003): 106-108.</ref>

== Pre-modern colonizations ==

=== Classical period ===
{{Main|Colonies in antiquity}}

In ancient times, maritime nations such as the city-states of [[Greece]] and [[Phoenicia]] established colonies in other parts of the Mediterranean.

Another period of colonization in ancient times was during the [[Roman Empire]]. The Roman Empire conquered large parts of [[Western Europe]], [[North Africa]], and [[West Asia]]. In North Africa and West Asia, the Romans often conquered what they regarded as 'civilized' peoples. As they moved north into Europe, they mostly encountered rural peoples/tribes with very little in the way of cities. In these areas, waves of Roman colonization often followed the conquest of the areas. Many of the current cities throughout Europe began as Roman colonies, such as [[Cologne]], Germany, originally called ''[[Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium]]'' by the Romans, and the [[United Kingdom|British]] capital city of [[London]], which the Romans founded as ''[[Londinium]]''.

=== Middle Ages ===
The decline and collapse of the Roman Empire saw (and was partly caused by) the large-scale movement of people in [[Eastern Europe]] and Asia. This is largely seen as beginning with nomadic horsemen from Asia (specifically the [[Huns]]) moving into the richer pasture land to the west, thus forcing the local people there to move further west and so on until eventually the [[Goths]] were forced to cross into the Roman Empire, resulting in continuous war with Rome which played a major role in the fall of the Roman Empire. During this period there were large-scale movements of people establishing new colonies all over western Europe.  The events of this time saw the development of many of the modern-day nations of Europe like the [[Franks]] in France and Germany and the [[Anglo-Saxons]] in England.

In West Asia, during the reign of the [[Sassanid Empire]], some Persians established colonies in [[Yemen]] and [[Oman]]. The [[Arabs]] also established colonies in [[Northern Africa]], [[Mesopotamia]], and the [[Levant]].<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20180512214613/http://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/article/opr/t125/e1803 Pact Of Uma]</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.britannica.com/place/North-Africa/From-the-Arab-conquest-to-1830|title=North Africa - Arab Muslim Conquest, Islamization, Arabization, and Berber Rebellion &#124; Britannica|website=www.britannica.com|accessdate=May 29, 2023}}</ref><ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20091128145127/http://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/article/opr/t253/e17 Select Spread Of Islam, The]</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.historyfiles.co.uk/KingListsMiddEast/ArabicSyria.htm|title=Kingdoms of the Arabs - Syria|first=P. L.|last=Kessler|website=The History Files|accessdate=May 29, 2023}}</ref><ref>"At the Prophet's death, according to the Muslim historians, the religion that he had brought was still confined to parts of the Arabian Peninsula. The Arabs, to whom he had brought it, were similarly restricted, with perhaps some extension in the borderlands of the Fertile Crescent.  The vast lands in southwest Asia, northern Africa, and elsewhere, which in later times came to constitute the lands of Islam, the realms of the caliphs and, in modern parlance, the Arab world, still spoke other languages, professed other religions, and obeyed other rulers. Within little more than a century after the Prophet's death, the whole area had been transformed, in what was surely one of the swiftest and most dramatic changes in the whole of human history.  By the late seventh century, the outside world attests the emergence of a new religion and a new power, the Muslim empire of the caliphs, extending eastward in Asia as far as and sometimes beyond the borders of India and China, westwards along the southern Mediterranean coast to the Atlantic, southwards towards the land of the black peoples in Africa, northwards into the lands of the white peoples of Europe. In this empire, Islam was the state religion, and the Arabic language was rapidly displacing others to become the principal medium public life." Lewis, Bernard. THE MIDDLE EAST: A Brief History of the Last 2,000 Years, Touchstone Simon and Schuster, New York, 1995. pp 54-55</ref>

The [[Vikings]] of [[Scandinavia]] also carried out a large-scale colonization. The Vikings are best known as raiders, setting out from their original homelands in [[Denmark]], southern [[Norway]], and southern [[Sweden]], to pillage the coastlines of northern Europe. In time, the Vikings began trading and established colonies. The Vikings first came across [[Iceland]] and established colonies there before moving onto [[Greenland]], where they built settlements that endured until the 15th century. The Vikings launched an unsuccessful attempt at colonizing an area they called [[Vinland]], which is probably at a site now known as [[L'Anse aux Meadows]], [[Newfoundland and Labrador]], on the eastern coastline of [[Canada]].

== Colonial Era ==
{{main|Colonialism}}
[[File:Colonisation 1550.png|thumb|right|World empires and colonies in 1550]]
[[File:Colonial empires in 1800.svg|thumb|World empires and colonies in 1800]]
In the Colonial Era, colonialism in this context refers mostly to Western European countries' colonization of lands mainly in the Americas, Africa, Asia and Oceania. The main European countries active in this form of colonization included [[Spain]], [[Portugal]], [[France]], the [[Tsardom of Russia]] (later [[Russian Empire]]), the [[Kingdom of England]] (later [[Kingdom of Great Britain|Great Britain]]), the [[Netherlands]], the [[Kingdom of Italy]], the [[Kingdom of Prussia]] (now mostly [[Germany]]), [[Belgium]], [[Denmark]], and [[Union between Sweden and Norway|Sweden-Norway]], and, beginning in the 18th century, the [[United States]]. Most of these countries had a period of almost complete power in world trade at some stage in the period from roughly 1500 to 1900. Beginning in the late 19th century, the [[Empire of Japan]] also engaged in settler colonization, most notably in [[Hokkaido]] and [[Korea]].

While some European colonization focused on shorter-term exploitation of economic opportunities ([[Newfoundland Colony|Newfoundland]], for example, or [[Siberia]]) or addressed specific goals such as settlers seeking religious freedom ([[Massachusetts]]), at other times long-term social and economic planning was involved for both parties, but more on the colonizing countries themselves, based on elaborate theory-building (note [[James Oglethorpe]]'s [[Colony of Georgia]] in the 1730s and [[Edward Gibbon Wakefield]]'s [[New Zealand Company]] in the 1840s).<ref>{{cite book| last1                 = Morgan| first1= Philip D.| author-link1= Philip D. Morgan| editor1-last= Morgan| editor1-first= Philip D.| editor1-link= Philip D. Morgan| title= African American Life in the Georgia Lowcountry: The Atlantic World and the Gullah Geechee| url= https://books.google.com/books?id=y7X-sIs5sBQC| chapter= Lowcountry Georgia and the Early Modern Atlantic World, 1733-ca. 1820| access-date= 2013-08-04| series= Race in the Atlantic World, 1700-1900 Series| year                  = 2011| publisher= University of Georgia Press| isbn= 9780820343075| page= 16| quote= [...] Georgia represented a break from the past. As one scholar has noted. it was 'a preview of the later doctrines of "systematic colonization" advocated by Edward Gibbon Wakefield and others for the settlement of Australia and New Zealand.' In contrast to such places as Jamaica and South Carolina, the trustees intended Georgia as 'a regular colony', orderly, methodical, disciplined [...]}}</ref>

[[File: World 1936 empires colonies territory.png|thumb|right|World empires and colonies in 1936]]
Colonization may be used as a method of absorbing and assimilating foreign people into the culture of the imperial country. One instrument to this end is [[linguistic imperialism]], or the use of non-indigenous colonial languages to the exclusion of any indigenous languages from administrative (and often, any public) use.<ref>{{cite web| url = https://content.sciendo.com/downloadpdf/journals/jnmlp/14/2/article-p117.xml| title = Tomasz Kamusella. 2020. Global Language Politics: Eurasia versus the Rest (pp 118-151). ''Journal of Nationalism, Memory & Language Politics''. Vol 14, No 2.}}</ref>

== 20th–21st century on Earth ==
{{See also|Neocolonialism|Development aid}}

===Soviet Union===
[[File:Nyet, nyet, Soviet (12).jpg|thumb|A protest sign from the second half of the 20th century criticizing U.N. reaction to Soviet colonial expansion]]
In the 1920s, the Soviet regime implemented the so-called [[korenization]] policy in an attempt to win the trust of non-Russians by promoting their ethnic cultures and establishing for them many of the characteristic institutional forms of the nation-state.<ref name="Terry Martin 2001 1">{{cite book|author=Terry Martin|title=The Affirmative Action Empire: Nations and Nationalism in the Soviet Union, 1923-1939|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rdlSX2hsb1kC&q=%22institutional+forms+of+the+nation-state%22|year=2001|publisher=Cornell University press|page=1|isbn=0801486777}}</ref> The early Soviet regime was hostile to even voluntary assimilation, and tried to de-Russify assimilated non-Russians.<ref name="Terry Martin 2001 32">{{cite book|author=Terry Martin|title=The Affirmative Action Empire: Nations and Nationalism in the Soviet Union, 1923-1939|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rdlSX2hsb1kC&q=%22measures+of+derussification%22|year=2001|publisher=Cornell University press|page=32|isbn=0801486777}}</ref> Parents and students not interested in the promotion of their national languages were labeled as displaying "abnormal attitudes". The authorities concluded that minorities unaware of their ethnicities had to be subjected to [[Belarusization]], [[Polonization]], etc.<ref name="Per Anders Rudling 2014 212">{{cite book|author=Per Anders Rudling|title=The Rise and Fall of Belarusian Nationalism, 1906–1931|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rRrRBgAAQBAJ&q=%22abnormal+attitudes%22|year=2014|publisher=University of Pittsburgh press|page=212|isbn=9780822979586}}</ref>

By the early 1930s, the Soviet regime introduced limited Russification;<ref name="Richard Overy 2004 558">{{cite book|last=Overy|first=Richard|title=The Dictators: Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=32Vy2Fj4KFUC&q=%22limited+russification%22 |year=2004 |publisher=W. W Norton Company |page=558 |isbn=9780141912240}}</ref> allowing voluntary assimilation, which was often a popular demand.<ref name="Terry Martin 2001 409">{{cite book|author=Terry Martin|title=The Affirmative Action Empire: Nations and Nationalism in the Soviet Union, 1923-1939|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rdlSX2hsb1kC&q=%22long-standing+popular+demand%22|year=2001|publisher=Cornell University press|page=409|isbn=0801486777}}</ref> The list of nationalities was reduced from 172 in 1927 to 98 in 1939,<ref name="Richard Overy 2004 556">{{cite book|author=Richard Overy|title=The Dictators: Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=32Vy2Fj4KFUC&q=%22limited+russification%22|year=2004|publisher=W.W Norton Company, Inc|page=556|isbn=9780141912240}}</ref> by revoking support for small nations in order to merge them into bigger ones. For example, [[Abkhazia]] was merged into Georgia and thousands of ethnic Georgians were sent to Abkhazia.<ref name="George Hewitt 1999 96">{{cite book|author=George Hewitt|title=The Abkhazians: A Handbook|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-YUfAgAAQBAJ|year=1999|publisher=Curzon Press|page=96|isbn=9781136802058}}</ref> The [[Abkhaz alphabet]] was changed to a Georgian base, Abkhazian schools were closed and replaced with Georgian schools, the Abkhaz language was banned.<ref>[http://abkhazworld.com/aw/history/643-summary-of-historical-events Summary of Historical Events in Abkhazian History, 1810-1993] ''Abkhaz World'', 15 October 2008, retrieved 11 September 2015.</ref> The ruling elite was purged of ethnic Abkhaz and by 1952 over 80% of the 228 top party and government officials and enterprise managers in Abkhazia were ethnic Georgians (there remained 34 Abkhaz, 7 Russians and 3 Armenians in these positions).<ref>[http://abkhazworld.com/aw/history/499-stalin-beria-terror-in-abkhazia-1936-53-by-stephen-shenfield The Stalin-Beria Terror in Abkhazia, 1936-1953, by Stephen D. Shenfield] ''Abkhaz World'', 30 June 2010, retrieved 11 September 2015.</ref> For [[Königsberg]] area of [[East Prussia]] (modern [[Kaliningrad Oblast]]) given to the Soviet Union at the 1945 [[Potsdam Conference]] Soviet control meant a [[Flight and expulsion of Germans (1944–1950)#Poland, including former German territories|forcible expulsion of the remaining German population]] and mostly involuntary resettlement of the area with Soviet civilians.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Malinkin |first1=Mary Elizabeth |title=Building a Soviet City: the Transform of Königsberg |url=https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/building-soviet-city-the-transformation-konigsberg |publisher=[[Wilson Center]] |accessdate=2 May 2018 |date=8 February 2016 |quote=Joyous letters were written back home to the collective farms to encourage more people to come, but it was hard to convince people, so the local collective farm boards were given quotas of how many they needed to send to Kaliningrad and other places. They often sent people who were perceived as less useful for the farm – pregnant women, alcoholics, and the less educated, for example.}}</ref>

Russians were now presented as the most advanced and least chauvinist people of the Soviet Union.<ref name="Richard Overy 2004 558"/>

==== Baltic states ====
[[File:Nyet, nyet, Soviet (11).jpg|thumb|A protest sign from the 1980s calling on the United Nations to abolish Soviet colonialism in the Baltic states]]

Large numbers of ethnic Russians and other [[Russian speakers]] were settled in the three Baltic countries – Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia – after their [[Occupation of the Baltic states|reoccupation in 1944]], while local languages, religion and customs were suppressed.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Vardys |first=Vytas Stanley |title=Soviet Colonialism in the Baltic States: A Note on the Nature of Modern Colonialism |url=https://www.lituanus.org/1964/64_2_01_Vardys.html |journal=[[Lituanus]] |volume=10 |issue=2 |date=Summer 1964 |issn=0024-5089 |access-date=2021-01-22 |archive-date=2021-11-09 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211109162257/https://www.lituanus.org/1964/64_2_01_Vardys.html |url-status=dead }}</ref> David Chioni Moore classified it as a "reverse-cultural colonization", where the colonized perceived the colonizers as culturally inferior.<ref>{{cite web |author=David Chioni Moore |title=Is the Post- in Postcolonial the Post- in Post-Soviet? Toward a Global Postcolonial Critique |url=http://monumenttotransformation.org/atlas-of-transformation/html/p/postcolonial-post-soviet/is-the-post-in-postcolonial-the-post-in-post-soviet-toward-a-global-postcolonial-critique-david-chioni-moore.html |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |accessdate=26 January 2021 |date=23 October 2020}}</ref> Colonization of the three Baltic countries was closely tied to mass executions, [[Population transfer in the Soviet Union#Post-war expulsion and deportation|deportations]] and [[repression in the Soviet Union|repression]] of the native population. During both Soviet occupations ([[Soviet occupation of the Baltic states (1940)|1940–1941]]; [[Soviet re-occupation of the Baltic states (1944)|1944–1991]]) a combined 605,000 inhabitants of the three countries were either killed or deported (135,000 Estonians, 170,000 Latvians and 320,000 Lithuanians), while their properties and personal belongings, along with ones who fled the country, were confiscated and given to the arriving colonists – [[Soviet military]] and [[NKVD]] personnel, as well as functionaries of the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Communist Party]] and [[economic migrant]]s from [[kolkhoz]]es.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Abene |first1=Aija |last2=Prikulis |first2=Juris |url=https://okupacijaszaudejumi.lv/content/files/DAMAGE%20CAUSED%20BY%20THE%20%20BALTIC%20STATES.pdf#page=21 |title=Damage caused by the Soviet Union in the Baltic States: International conference materials |publisher= E-forma |date=2017 |location=[[Riga]] |isbn=978-9934-8363-1-2 |pages=20–21|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230317121932/https://okupacijaszaudejumi.lv/content/files/DAMAGE%20CAUSED%20BY%20THE%20%20BALTIC%20STATES.pdf|archive-date=17 March 2023|url-status=live}}</ref>

The most dramatic case was Latvia, where the amount of ethnic Russians swelled from 168,300 (8.8%) in 1935 to 905,500 (34%) in 1989, whereas the proportion of ethnic Latvians fell from 77% in 1935 to 52% in 1989.<ref>{{cite book |last=Grenoble |first=Lenore A. |author-link=Lenore Grenoble |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WUeWBwAAQBAJ&pg=PA102 |title=Language Policy in the Soviet Union |publisher=[[Kluwer Academic Publishers]] |date=2003 |location=[[Dordrecht]] |isbn=1-4020-1298-5 |pages=102–103}}</ref> Baltic states also faced intense [[economic exploitation]], with [[Latvian SSR]], for example, transferring 15.961 billion rubles (or 18.8% percent of its total revenue of 85 billion rubles) more to the USSR budget from 1946 to 1990 than it received back. And of the money transferred back, a disproportionate amount was spent on the region's [[militarization]] and funding of repressive institutions, especially in the [[Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic#Stalinism re-imposed, 1945–1953|early years of the occupation]].<ref>{{cite web |last=Krūmiņš |first=Gatis |title=The Investments of the USSR Occupying Power in the Baltic Economies – Myths and Reality |url=https://va.lv/sites/default/files/lv_psrs_norekini2016_final_eng_final.pdf |publisher=[[Vidzeme University of Applied Sciences]] |pages=18–19 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220408080253/https://va.lv/sites/default/files/lv_psrs_norekini2016_final_eng_final.pdf |archive-date=8 April 2022}}</ref> It has been calculated by a Latvian state-funded commission that the Soviet occupation cost the [[economy of Latvia]] a total of 185 billion euros.<ref>{{cite web |title=Soviet occupation cost Latvian economy €185 billion, says research |url=https://eng.lsm.lv/article/society/society/soviet-occupation-cost-latvian-economy-185-billion-says-research.a178769/ |publisher=[[Public Broadcasting of Latvia]] |agency=[[LETA]] |accessdate=23 October 2020 |date=18 April 2015}}</ref><ref>{{cite magazine |title=Damage to Latvian economy during soviet rule estimated at EUR 185 bln |url=http://www.baltic-course.com/eng/analytics/?doc=119625 |magazine=[[The Baltic Course]] |accessdate=23 October 2020 |date=19 April 2015}}</ref>

Conversely, [[Marxian economics|Marxian economist]] and [[World-systems theory|world-systems analyst]] [[Samir Amin]] asserts that, in contrast to colonialism, capital transfer in the USSR was used to develop poorer regions in the South and East with the wealthiest regions like [[Western Russia]], Ukraine, and the Baltic Republics being the main source of capital.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Amin |first1=Samir |title=Russia and the Long Transition from Capitalism to Socialism |date=Jul 2016 |publisher=NYU Press |isbn=9781583676035 |pages=27–29 |url=https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=nn-tCwAAQBAJ&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA29.w.1.2.31 |quote=The Soviet government did much more: it established a system to transfer capital from the rich regions of the Union (western Russia, Ukraine, Belorussia, later the Baltic countries) to the developing regions of the east and south. |access-date=24 February 2021}}</ref> Estonian researcher [[Epp Annus]] acknowledges that the Soviet rule in the Baltic states did not possess every single characteristic of traditional colonialism since the Baltic states were already modern industrial European [[nation state]]s with an established sense of [[national identity]] and cultural self-confidence prior to their Soviet invasion in 1940 and proposed that the initial Soviet occupation developed into a colonial rule gradually, as the local resistance turned into a hybrid coexistence with the Soviet power. The Soviet colonial rule never managed to fully establish itself and began rapidly disintegrating during ''[[perestroika]]'', but after the restoration of independence, the Baltic states similarly had to deal with problems of a characteristically colonial nature, such as [[pollution]], [[economic collapse]] and demographic tensions.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Annus |first=Epp |authorlink=Epp Annus |title=The Problem of Soviet Colonialism in the Baltics |journal=[[Journal of Baltic Studies]] |volume=42 |issue=1 |date=March 2012 |pages=21–45 |issn=0162-9778 |doi=10.1080/01629778.2011.628551|s2cid=143682036 }}</ref>

====Jewish oblast====
[[File:Government-hq.jpg|thumb|upright|Sign on the JAO government headquarters]]
In 1934, the Soviet government established the [[Jewish Autonomous Oblast]] in the Soviet Far East to create a homeland for the Jewish people. Another motive was to strengthen Soviet presence along the vulnerable eastern border. The region was often infiltrated by the Chinese; in 1927, [[Chiang Kai-shek]] had ended [[First United Front|cooperation with the Chinese Communist Party]], which further increased the threat. Japan also seemed willing and ready to detach the Far Eastern provinces from the USSR.<ref name="Nora Levin 1990 283">{{cite book|author=Nora Levin|title=The Jews in the Soviet Union Since 1917: Paradox of Survival, Volume 1|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1Nz0N5GBW6MC|year=1990|publisher=New York University Press|page=283|isbn=9780814750513}}</ref> To make settlement of the inhospitable and undeveloped region more enticing, the Soviet government allowed private ownership of land. This led to many non-Jews to settle in the oblast to get a free farm.<ref name="Richard Overy 2004 567">{{cite book|author=Richard Overy|title=The Dictators: Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=32Vy2Fj4KFUC|year=2004|publisher=W.W Norton Company, Inc|page=567|isbn=9780141912240}}</ref>

By the 1930s, a massive propaganda campaign developed to induce more Jewish settlers to move there. In one instance, a government-produced Yiddish film called ''[[Seekers of Happiness]]'' told the story of a Jewish family that fled the [[Great Depression]] in the [[United States]] to make a new life for itself in Birobidzhan. Some 1,200 non-Soviet Jews chose to settle in Birobidzhan.<ref name="jewishmag.com">Arthur Rosen, [www./75mag/birobidzhan/birobidzhan.htm], February 2004</ref> The Jewish population peaked in 1948 at around 30,000, about one-quarter of the region's population. By 2010, according to data provided by the Russian Census Bureau, there were  only 1,628 people of Jewish descent remaining in the JAO (1% of the total population), while ethnic Russians made up 92.7% of the JAO population.<ref name=autogenerated1>{{cite web |url=http://www.gks.ru/free_doc/new_site/population/demo/per-itog/tab7.xls |title=Информационные материалы об окончательных итогах Всероссийской переписи населения 2010 года |access-date=2013-04-19 |archive-date=2012-06-01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120601173256/http://www.gks.ru/free_doc/new_site/population/demo/per-itog/tab7.xls |url-status=dead }}</ref> The JAO is Russia's only [[autonomous oblast]]<ref>[[Constitution of the Russian Federation]], Article 65</ref> and, aside of Israel, the world's only Jewish territory with an official status.<ref name=autogenerated4>{{cite journal|author=Спектор Р., руководитель Департамента Евро-Азиатского Еврейского конгресса (ЕАЕК) по связям с общественностью и СМИ|title=Биробиджан — terra incognita?|url=http://www.nasledie-eao.ru/services/nayka/scientific-practical-conference/bir_proekt_konf_2007.pdf#page=18|editor=под ред. Гуревич В.С. |editor2=Рабинович А.Я. |editor3=Тепляшин А.В. |editor4=Воложенинова Н.Ю. |via=Правительство Еврейской автономной области|journal=Биробиджанский проект (опыт межнационального взаимодействия): сборник материалов научно-практической конференции|location=Биробиджан|publisher=ГОУ "Редакция газеты [[Birobidzhaner Shtern]]"|year=2008|page=20}}</ref>

===Israel===
{{main|Zionism as settler colonialism }}
Whether or not the [[Zionist]] movement represents a settler colonial project is a hotly debated subject in Middle Eastern political theory.<ref name="Troen">{{cite journal |last1=Troen |first1=S. Ilan |year=2007 |title=De-Judaizing the Homeland: Academic Politics in Rewriting the History of Palestine |journal=Israel Affairs |volume=13 |issue=4 |pages=872–884 |doi=10.1080/13537120701445372 |s2cid=216148316}}</ref><ref name="Elbe">{{cite journal | last1=Elbe| first1=Ingo| year=2025| title=Postcolonialism, Antisemitism, and Israel: The 'Progressive' Attack on the Jewish State and Holocaust Memory| journal= On the Critique of Identity| pages=155–185|doi=10.1007/978-3-662-69447-3_7}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal| last1=Wolfe| first1=Patrick| year=2006| title=Settler colonialism and the elimination of the native| journal=Journal of Genocide Research| volume=8| issue=4| pages=387–409| doi=10.1080/14623520601056240}}</ref> In the [[First Aliyah]], much of the Zionist settlement consisted of legal land purchases for agricultural colonies, or [[moshav]]ot, for wine and citrus production.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Halperin |first=Liora R. |title=The oldest guard: forging the Zionist settler past |date=2021 |publisher=Stanford University Press |isbn=978-1-5036-2871-7 |series=Stanford studies in Jewish history and culture |location=Stanford, California}}</ref>

According to [[Elia Zuriek]] in his book "Israel's Colonial Project in Palestine: Brutal Pursuit", Israeli settlements in the [[West Bank]] are a form of colonization.<ref>{{cite book|last=Zureik|first=Elia|title=Israel's Colonial Project in Palestine: Brutal Pursuit|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vsf4CgAAQBAJ|year=2015|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-317-34046-1|page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=vsf4CgAAQBAJ&pg=PA1&dq=settler%20colonialism INTRODUCTION]}}</ref> This view is part of a key debate in the [[Israeli–Palestinian conflict]]. Law professors [[Steven Lubet]] and Jonathan Zasloff describe the "[[Zionism as settler colonialism]]" theory as politically motivated, derogatory and highly controversial.<ref>{{Cite news |title=Is Israel Really a Settler Colonial State? |language=en |work=Haaretz |url=https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2021-07-05/ty-article-opinion/is-israel-really-a-settler-colonial-state/0000017f-f46f-d497-a1ff-f6ef21fc0000 |access-date=2022-06-13}}</ref>
According to them, there are important differences between Zionism and settler colonialism, for instance:
# Early Zionists did not seek to transport European culture into Israel, they sought to revive the culture of an indigenous people of the land, the culture of their ancestors (e.g., they left their European languages behind and adopted a Middle Eastern/Semitic one: Hebrew).
# No settler colonial movement ever claimed to be "returning home."
# Jews had already been living in the "colonized" region for thousands of years.

===Indonesia===
{{See also|Transmigration program|Indonesian invasion of East Timor|Insurgency in Aceh|Papua conflict}}

The transmigration program is an initiative of the [[government of Indonesia|Indonesian government]] to move landless people from densely populated areas of [[Java (island)|Java]], but also to a lesser extent from [[Bali]] and [[Madura Island|Madura]],  to less populous areas of the country including [[West Papua (region)|Papua]], [[Kalimantan]], [[Sumatra]], and [[Sulawesi]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2010/05/02/govt-builds-transmigration-museum-lampung.html|title=Govt builds transmigration museum in Lampung &#124; The Jakarta Post|date=June 4, 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100604015847/http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2010/05/02/govt-builds-transmigration-museum-lampung.html|archive-date=2010-06-04}}</ref>

=== Papua New Guinea ===
{{See also|Bougainville Civil War}}In 1884 Britain declared a protective order over South East New Guinea, establishing an official colony in 1888. Germany however, annexed parts of the North. This annexation separated the entire region into the South, known as "The Territory of Papua" and North, known as "German New Guinea".<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://dl.nfsa.gov.au/module/357/|title=Screen Australia Digital Learning - Origins of the Bougainville Conflict (2000)|website=dl.nfsa.gov.au|language=en-au|access-date=2018-12-13}}</ref>

=== Philippines ===
{{See also|Moro conflict}}
Due to marginalization produced by continuous Resettlement Policy, by 1969, political tensions and open hostilities developed between the [[Government of the Philippines]] and [[Moro people|Moro]] [[Islam|Muslim]] rebel groups in [[Mindanao]].<ref name="scribd.com">{{cite web|url=https://www.scribd.com/doc/89147694/The-CenSEI-Report-Vol-2-No-13-April-2-8-2012#page=3|title=The CenSEI Report (Vol. 2, No. 13, April 2-8, 2012)|access-date=26 January 2015}}</ref>{{failed verification|date=November 2020|reason=more specificity needed -- need a particular article and, hopefully, a page number}}

=== Myanmar ===
{{See also|Rohingya conflict|Internal conflict in Myanmar}}

===Subject peoples===
Many colonists came to colonies for [[Slavery|slaves]] to their colonizing countries, so the legal power to leave or remain may not be the issue so much as the actual presence of the people in the new country. This left the indigenous natives of their lands slaves in their own countries.

The [[Canadian Indian residential school system]] was identified by the [[Truth and Reconciliation Commission (Canada)]] as colonization through depriving the youth of First Nations in Canada of their languages and cultures.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Honouring the Truth, Reconciling for the Future: Summary of the Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada|last=The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada|publisher=Government of Canada|year=2015|isbn=978-0-660-02078-5}}</ref>

During the mid 20th century, there was the most dramatic and devastating attempt at colonization, and that was pursued with Nazism.<ref name="EI2">{{cite book|last1=Howe|first1=Stephen|title=Empire: A Very Short Introduction|date=2002|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=United States|pages=59–60}}</ref> Hitler and Heinrich Himmler and their supporters schemed for a mass migration of Germans to Eastern Europe, where some of the Germans were to become colonists, having control over the native people.<ref name="EI2" /> These indigenous people were planned to be reduced to slaves or wholly annihilated.<ref name="EI2" />

Many advanced nations currently have large numbers of [[guest worker]]s/[[temporary work]] visa holders who are brought in to do seasonal work such as harvesting or to do low-paid manual labor. Guest workers or contractors have a lower status than workers with visas, because guest workers can be removed at any time for any reason.

===Endo-colonization===
Colonization may be a domestic strategy when there is a widespread security threat within a nation and weapons are turned inward, as noted by [[Paul Virilio]]:
:Obsession with security results in the ''endo-colonization'' of society: endo-colonization is the use of increasingly powerful and ubiquitous technologies of security turned ''inward'', to attempt to secure the fast and messy circulations of our globalizing, networked society...it is the increasing domination of public life with stories of dangerous otherness and suspicion...<ref>Mark Lacy (2014) ''Security, Technology and Global Politics, thinking with Virilio'', page 20, Routledge {{ISBN|978-0-415-57604-8}}</ref>
Some instances of the burden of endo-colonization have been noted:
:The acute difficulties of the Latin American and southern European military-bureaucratic dictatorships in the seventies and early eighties and the Soviet Union in the late eighties can in large part be attributed to the economic, political and social contradictions induced by endo-colonizing militarism.<ref>[[Tim Luke]] & [[Gearoid O Tuathail]] (2000) "Thinking Geopolitical Space: The spatiality of war, speed and vision in the work of Paul Virilio", in ''Thinking Space'', [[Mike Crang]] & [[Nigel Thrift]] editors, [[Routledge]], quote page  368</ref>

==Space colonization==
{{Excerpt|Space colonization|paragraphs=1}}

===By target===
* [[Colonization of the asteroid belt]]
* [[Colonization of Mars]]
* [[Colonization of the Moon]]
* [[Colonization of Titan]]
* [[Colonization of trans-Neptunian objects]]
* [[Space settlement]]

==See also==

; Colonization
* [[Colonialism]]
* [[Coloniality of gender]]
* [[Colonization of Antarctica]]
* [[Cocacolonization]]
* [[Ocean colonization]]
* [[Colonial empire#List of colonial empires|List of colonial empires]]

; Other related
* [[Colonisation (biology)]]
* [[Human settlement]]
* [[Imperialism]]
* [[Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact]]

== Notes and references ==
{{reflist|group=lower-alpha}}
{{Reflist}}

== Bibliography ==
* Cooper, Frederick, ''Colonialism in Question: Theory, Knowledge History'', Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005
* [[Jared Diamond]], ''[[Guns, Germs, and Steel|Guns, germs and steel. A short history of everybody for the last 13,000 years]]'', 1997.
* Ankerl Guy, ''Coexisting Contemporary Civilizations: Arabo-Muslim, Bharati, Chinese, and Western'', INUPress, Geneva, 2000. {{ISBN|2-88155-004-5}}.
* Cotterell, Arthur. ''Western Power in Asia: Its Slow Rise and Swift Fall, 1415 - 1999'' (2009) popular history; [https://www.amazon.com/Western-Power-Asia-Slow-Swift/dp/0470824891/  excerpt]
{{Commons}}
{{Colonization}}
{{Space colonization}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Colonialism| ]]
[[Category:Articles containing video clips]]
[[Category:Settler colonialism]]