Colonialism and imperialism 1839–1945

The Opium Wars, the Meiji Restoration, colonial rule and two world wars.

Map of Asia in 1920, during the Colonialism and imperialism — Border map for 1920. See the world in 1920.

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Border maps in this era

Timeline

Year	Event	Where
1840	The First Opium War begins	Guangzhou
1851	The Taiping Rebellion begins
1857	The Indian Rebellion	Delhi
1868	The Meiji Restoration	Tokyo
1895	End of the First Sino-Japanese War; Taiwan is ceded	Battle of Weihaiwei
1905	Battle of Tsushima	Battle of Tsushima
1905	Battle of Mukden	Battle of Mukden
1911	The Xinhai Revolution begins
1935	The Zunyi Conference	Zunyi Conference
1937	Marco Polo Bridge Incident: full-scale war between China and Japan	Beijing
1942	Fall of Singapore	Singapore

Battles and sites

← Gunpowder empires and the High Qing Decolonisation and the rise of Asia →

Notable people of the Colonialism and imperialism

Lived	Person
1780 – 1839	Ranjit Singh	Maharaja of the Sikh Empire
1785 – 1850	Lin Zexu	Qing official
1835 – 1908	Empress Dowager Cixi	De facto ruler of Qing China
1852 – 1912	Emperor Meiji	Emperor of Japan
1853 – 1910	Chulalongkorn (Rama V)	King of Siam
1861 – 1941	Rabindranath Tagore	Poet
1861 – 1896	José Rizal	Filipino national hero
1866 – 1925	Sun Yat-sen	Founder of the Republic of China
1869 – 1948	Mahatma Gandhi	Leader of Indian independence
1876 – 1948	Muhammad Ali Jinnah	Founder of Pakistan
1889 – 1964	Jawaharlal Nehru	First prime minister of India
1890 – 1969	Ho Chi Minh	Vietnamese revolutionary leader

Last updated 9 November 2026. Sources: border data from historical-basemaps, land and rivers from Natural Earth; texts written for Chronica Maps from standard reference works. How we make the maps.