Tip: See my list of the Most Common Mistakes in English. It will teach you how to avoid mis­takes with com­mas, pre­pos­i­tions, ir­reg­u­lar verbs, and much more.

The following map shows the number of colonies European countries (or their historical ancestors) have had, and it is based mainly on this list. Sometimes it is unclear what constitutes a separate colony, so, according to different definitions, the numbers could vary slightly.

Also, some of the colonies were rather short-lived. Perhaps the most failed colonization attempt was the Austrian colonization of Nicobar Islands, which consisted of a single ship arriving at the islands, leaving only six men behind. The colony disintegrated after the leader of the colonization died five years later. Nonetheless, most of the colonies were true colonies occupied for many decades or centuries.

The underlying blank map was made by Tindo and licensed from fotolia.com. If you want to share the map, please share a link to this webpage instead of sharing just the picture.