1945–1975 CE · selected peak phase of decolonization · Global · Rights
Across a selected peak period, mass organizing, negotiation, strikes and armed struggle dismantled much formal European rule and created dozens of sovereign states along different national timelines.
Atlas dossier · Cold War & DecolonizationFree device narration · synchronized English captions · transcript available
Why it matters
The 1945–1975 range is a selected peak phase spanning negotiation, elections, strikes, mass mobilization and armed struggle. India, Ghana, Algeria, Indonesia, Kenya and Portuguese colonies did not follow one template, and women, workers, veterans and rural organizers acted for aims not reducible to later heads of state.
United Nations: Decolonization ↗New states inherited borders, institutions and economic dependencies made under colonial rule. Settler-colonial conflicts, minority claims and Cold War interventions shaped different outcomes, while some territories remain formally listed as Non-Self-Governing. The 1975 endpoint therefore marks major Portuguese imperial withdrawals, not the completion of decolonization everywhere.
UNESCO General History of Africa ↗Silent pan-and-zoom motion derivative of the Decolonization across Asia and Africa reconstruction; not archival footage.
Primary Atlas editorial reconstruction for Decolonization across Asia and Africa.
World History in Pictures · Public site artwork. This record does not grant third-party republication rights.
How Atlas classifies this artwork →
Supporting Atlas reconstruction within the same Decolonization across Asia and Africa editorial package; not an independent archival record.
World History in Pictures · Same editorial artwork package
How Atlas classifies this artwork →
Context crop from the same Decolonization across Asia and Africa reconstruction; not an independent historical record.
World History in Pictures · Same editorial artwork package
How Atlas classifies this artwork →Interpretation note
This dossier distinguishes the event’s basic chronology from later arguments about meaning, responsibility and legacy. When comparing religious, national, Indigenous or scholarly interpretations, consult the primary and institutional sources above alongside peer-reviewed historical work.
Elsewhere in the world
1947–1949 CE · partition proposal, civil war, statehood, regional war and displacement · Middle East1948 war, Palestinian displacement and the making of IsraelThe UN General Assembly recommended partition in 1947; civil war followed, Israel declared statehood as the British Mandate ended in May 1948, and neighbouring Arab states entered the war. More than 700,000 Palestinians were displaced or expelled in the Nakba.
1947–1948 CE · independence, Partition, migration and first Kashmir war · AsiaPartition and independence of India and PakistanBritish rule ended and India and Pakistan became independent in August 1947. A hurried boundary divided Punjab and Bengal amid one of the twentieth century’s largest forced migrations, communal violence and the first war over Kashmir.
1947–1956 CE · cave discoveries and dispersed manuscripts · Middle EastThe Dead Sea Scrolls are discoveredBedouin discoverers, antiquities dealers and archaeologists brought to light manuscripts from eleven caves near Qumran between 1947 and 1956, including biblical texts and other Jewish writings copied during the late Second Temple period.
Mau Mau, the Kenya Emergency and colonial violence →
The Suez Crisis and the limits of European empire →
From the Organisation of African Unity to the African Union →
Indonesia’s independence: proclamation, revolution and sovereignty →
Algerian independence: war, sovereignty and the cultural inheritance →