INHABITED PLACES THAT HAD NEVER BEEN RULED BY A EUROPEAN NATION: I
asked last Friday what inhabited
places had never been ruled by a European nation, and I got nearly 50
responses over the last few days; some of the answers were pretty easy,
and many people got them -- some were hard, and I specially note those
who got the very hardest ones. Here they are, by area:
- Asia.
This is where the Europeans ruled least. Some people,
incidentally, asked whether the Russians (either Czarist or Soviet) count
as European; absolutely -- what we call Asian Russia today (Russia east
of the Urals) is just a part of territory conquered by a culture that
first flourished in Europe, west of the Urals. The Soviet Union was
likewise really the Russian empire. Here are the places which weren't
ruled by the Russians or any other European power:
� Japan.
The Americans, of course, did rule it after World War II, but while
America is in many ways a European culture, it isn't a European country.
� China
(including Tibet), outside some of the areas (mostly on the coast) that were ruled by the Europeans.
� South Korea. North Korea was controlled by the Russians for several years following World War II.
� Thailand.
� Nepal. The British ruled India, but not Nepal.
� Bhutan, in part; part was controlled by the British. Only ten people got this one. UPDATE: A message from reader Eric Stone leads me to elaborate a bit further: Bhutan did
� permit England to manage its foreign affairs -- which made it a British protectorate, under one definition of protectorate -- but it did this in exchange for cash, which makes it sound like less of a surrender of sovereignty (though that's a judgment call, of course), and which is why I included it on the list.
� Saudi Arabia.
� Northern Yemen (what was called North Yemen until it was united with the rest of Yemen).
� Possibly
Qatar, more or less, though the British exercised some control, though not other parts of the Arabian Peninsula, which were generally ruled by the British, or were at least British protectorates -- yes, I realize that it depends on what "rules" means, but I get to make the rules. Christopher Cha and Robin West got Qatar, but I deduct points for their getting various other places that had been even more heavily controlled by the British.
� Possibly
Mongolia, though various Russian regimes -- Czarist, White Russian, and Soviet -- were involved in ways that suggest something less than total Mongolian independence.
� Not Taiwan, which was ruled by the Dutch in the early to mid-1600s; I did not know that, but my coblogger Jacob Levy did.
� Not Turkey, though some suggested it -- it was ruled by Alexander the Great and the Romans. Some people suggested that the ancient cultures don't qualify as Europeans, but I don't see why not. I realize there might be some ambiguity as to "nation" when we're talking about Alexander the Great's transitory conquests, but not as to the Roman conquests.
� Not Iran, which was very briefly conquered by Alexander, though query whether the conquest was long enough or pervasive enough to constitute Macedonian rule.
� Not Afghanistan, which was ruled -- more or less -- by the Russians in the 1980s.
� Not Sikkim, which was a British protectorate for a while.
- Oceania.
� Hawaii. UPDATE: Reader Chris Lawrence passes along
� this link, which says that the British ruled Hawaii for a few months in 1843, with some noises being made even earlier, in 1794; if that's so, then Hawaii would be off the list.
� American Samoa. Eric Stone, Mark Kleiman, H. Koenig, and Duncan Frissell got this (and I hadn't thought of it).
� Easter Island. Points to
� Andrew Lloyd for being the only one to find this (again, I hadn't thought of it, or of the next one).
� Galapagos Islands. Likewise, Andrew Lloyd got it. I suspect there might be a few other islands now run by some of the Latin American countries that had never been governed by the Spanish.
� Some people suggested Tonga, but it was a British protectorate for much of the 20th century, albeit one that apparently enjoyed considerable self-government.
- Africa.
� Liberia. It was founded by freed American slaves in the early 1800s, and wasn't snapped up in the scramble for Africa in the late 1800s. A tough one; only nine people got it.
� Not Ethiopia or Eritrea, which were ruled by Italians (Ethiopia under Mussolini, Eritrea since the late 1800s).
- Atlantic Ocean.
� Not Iceland, even if you don't view it as itself being a European nation; it was formally united with Norway and Denmark for much of the last millennium, and, as best I can tell, in some measure ruled by Denmark for part of that time.
- North America.
� Much of the
Louisiana purchase,
Oregon, Washington, and Idaho, and neighboring areas -- these may have been claimed by the Spanish and French, or, in the case of Oregon, Washington, and Idaho, ostensibly jointly controlled by the British and the U.S. from 1818 to 1846, but they weren't really meaningfully ruled by those governments. The same may well be said of some parts of the British zone of what is now the U.S., and some of the Spanish Southwest, which wasn't meaningfully ruled by non-Indian people until after the U.S. and Mexico took over. Also, under this definition, the same might be said as to some parts of the rest of the world, though fewer, since Europeans ostensibly controlled them into the 1900s, by which time European technology enabled realistic rule over a much larger part of the hinterland.
- South America.
� Patagonia, which wasn't really taken over from the indigenous peoples until the late 1800s, when Argentina and Chile rather than Spain ruled the area. The same might, I suspect, be said in some measure of some of Amazonia. Karl Narveson was the only one (besides me) to get it.
