Decolonisation: the world remade, 1945-1975
6 min readUpdated 11 September 2026
In thirty years, more than fifty countries became independent. What caused it, how it unfolded, and what it left behind.
A world of empires in 1945
When the Second World War ended, much of Africa and Asia was governed from London, Paris, Brussels, The Hague or Lisbon. European empires ruled hundreds of millions of people. The war had weakened them badly: their economies were drained, their military defeats had punctured their prestige, and colonial troops had fought in Europe and Asia in the name of freedom. The United Nations Charter, signed in 1945, affirmed the right of peoples to self-determination. The two new superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, both opposed the European empires, for very different reasons.
Asia goes first
Asia led the way. India and Pakistan became independent in August 1947, at the cost of a partition that displaced millions and caused enormous violence. Indonesia declared independence in 1945 and won Dutch recognition in 1949 after four years of conflict. In Indochina, the war between France and the Viet Minh ended in 1954 with the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu and the Geneva Accords. Two routes were already visible: negotiation and armed struggle, often mixed.
The African year
In Africa the turning point came around 1960, when seventeen states became independent in a single year, including most former French colonies and the Belgian Congo. The Bandung Conference of 1955 had already brought twenty-nine Asian and African countries together in shared opposition to colonial rule. Many transitions were negotiated. Others were brutal: the Algerian war ran from 1954 to 1962 and killed hundreds of thousands. Portugal's colonies only became independent in 1974-75, after the dictatorship in Lisbon fell.
Building a state after empire
Political independence settled less than it promised. New states inherited borders drawn in Berlin in 1885 with no regard for the people living inside them, economies built around one or two export commodities, and thin administrations. Many adopted one-party rule in the name of national unity. The Cold War arrived quickly, with both blocs backing governments in exchange for diplomatic alignment. The Non-Aligned Movement, founded in 1961, tried to hold a third position.
What it left behind
Decolonisation redrew the map. The UN had 51 members in 1945; it has 193 today. It also left long shadows: contested borders, European official languages, lopsided trade relationships, and memories that remain politically charged. Historians still argue over the balance sheet of empire and over how colonisation should be taught. Understanding this period makes a great deal of today's news, from the Sahel to Southeast Asia, far easier to read.